I Think I Saw a Movie Like This Once
by Indigo-Night-Wisp
Summary: The Story of how Nicholas Braddock-Wilson ended his own existence, broke his parents up, realized that all his aunts were hot, met his girlfriend before he was born, got his parents back together, and defeated like, 30 ninjas all by himself. In 5 parts.
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: "Did everybody see that? Because I will **_**not **_**be doing that again." –Captain Jack Sparrow **

**A/N: This story was written at the request of Dark Lord of the X-Men. The protagonist, Nicholas Braddock-Wilson, is his creation, and thus any compliments about him should be directed in The Dark Lord's direction. I've had so much fun writing Nick. Even though I don't usually write OCs as main characters in fanfiction, Dark Lord's description and character profile for him was so interesting, and the premise for the story was so engaging, I agreed almost instantly. And I'm glad I did, because I've had a marvelous time. Dark Lord, I am so sorry that it has taken so very long to finish this story, and I hope that it turns out to be worth the wait.**

**And now, without further ado, I present to you all:**

"**I Think I Saw a Movie Like This Once"**

* * *

**Part I: The One with the Stargate, the Date Crashing, and All the Hot Aunts**

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters is silent. Silent and dark. All of the agents and dignitaries and consultants and Tony Stark have gone home for the day. The only people still in the building are the night guards and the truly dedicated and insomniac scientists in the basement labs. There are only four security guards, who patrol the grounds with the complacency that comes from being security for a government agency rumored to employ assassins. Surely, they think, only the truly stupid or truly insane would break into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

They're half right.

As Security Guard #3 rounds his corner of the perimeter, a shadow detaches from the side of the building, high above him. Clinging silently to a fire escape, the shadow waits until the guard is directly below and then drops.

The shadow lands silently behind Guard #3 and reaches out to tap the unfortunate man on the shoulder.

"Shh," he says soothingly when the hapless guard whirls around. "We wouldn't want to wake anybody up, now would we?"

The guard opens his mouth, presumably to answer the question but more probably to sound the alarm and the figure reaches out and very delicately pushes against a pressure point in the guard's neck. The man goes limp.

The shadowy figure catches Guard#3 as he sags, unconscious, to the ground.

"There," he says, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

000

Nicholas Braddock-Wilson strolls into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters with a definite air of entitlement. This is, after all, his home away from home.

When, about nineteen years ago, Betsy and Wade Braddock-Wilson announced that they were going to be parents, S.H.I.E.L.D. had flipped their metaphorical lids. Tests had to be conducted, paperwork had to be filed. Wade Wilson was _not _supposed to be able to father children. _Clearly, _there was something nefarious going on.

The very day the baby was born, Betsy and Wade started getting "requests" from S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists to have him brought in for testing. After about a week or so of this, Deadpool and Psylocke paid a midnight visit to S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury, with little Nicholas strapped to Psylocke's back like a Native American papoose. They left with a one year agreement to allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to run tests on baby Nick, and a thinly-veiled threat of a fate worse than death if one hair was harmed on the infant's head. And a pack of Oreo's that Wade found in the cupboard.

So for the first year of his life, Nicholas Braddock-Wilson spent most of every day at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters being poked and prodded by scientists who were trying to figure out the mystery of his existence.

Not, of course, that Nick remembers any of this, but he figures it's the thought that counts.

Or something.

S.H.I.E.L.D. is up to something. The communications his mother's scanner has been picking up lately have become increasingly more mysterious (and thus, more interesting) with every email exchanged. Nick wants to know what the agency is up to. Never mind that it's technically none of his business. He is his father's son and he'll make it his business if he wants to! The fate of the world could be at stake here!

Also, Nick is bored.

He pauses by the elevator in the main lobby and frowns when it doesn't respond. Reaching out with careful tendrils of telekinesis, he finds and flips the elevator activation switch behind the front desk, calling the car up the shaft.

He spends the ride down into the basement humming the theme song to _The Lone Ranger_.

The labs are dark. Nick cups his hands around his eyes and peers through the glass of Lab #1. Not seeing anyone, he reaches for the door handle, only to find the door locked and a keypad lighting up and requesting he input a pass code.

Nick's mum keeps the controls of her private jet pass coded. If he can't hack a pass code, he can't fly to Argentina and surprise Laura on her mission, which is an opportunity that should never be passed up. Nick can crack a code in under ten seconds.

The keypad light goes green. Nick grins and strolls into the lab.

S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratories are set up in a Russian nesting doll pattern –to get to the next one, you have to go through the one before it. Nick ghosts silently through Lab #1 and into Lab #2. Both are dark and empty. Frustrated, he spins on his heel and then he sees the light.

Literally. There's a light on in Lab #3.

Nick grins. Finally. Progress.

He pulls off his mask and uses one of the glass boards in the lab as a mirror. His blond hair sticks up in all directions from the mask (_Mask-head_, his inner voice giggles.) and his blue eyes narrow in concentration as he runs a hand through the mess, trying to tame the static.

And then he pushes open the door to Lab #3 and walks in.

"Hi," he says, flashing what he hopes is a charming smile at the young scientist who is staring at him incredulously. Given that he has it on good authority that his smile usually looks like a crocodile's, he can't really blame her for looking so startled.

("Nick," Laura had said, "you look like a crocodile when you smile like that."

"Oh. Sorry."

"No, don't be. I like it.")

"You can't be in here!" the scientist manages finally.

"Why not?" Nick asks, feigning innocent confusion.

She glares at him, apparently unaffected by his charm. "Because this is a government building and you're not authorized to be here!"

Nick pouts. "But –" he cuts off abruptly because he's just now noticed the _giant swirling vortex _in the center of the room.

"Dark Lord of the X-men," he breathes. "You're building a _Stargate_?"

(That was most emphatically _not _a delighted squeal, thanks very much.)

"A Stargate?" the scientist sputters, momentarily distracted from duty by professional outrage. "Excuse me, young man, this is not science fiction! This is a top secret government project –and you really shouldn't be here," she finishes with a groan as Nick's face lights up at the words "top secret".

"No, you can't…"

He ignores her and slips by her work table to stand in front of the Stargate (whatever, Nick is _totally _gonna call it that).

"What does it do?" and no, Nick does not sound _awed_, his interest here is purely scientific and has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his dad had gotten him the entire boxed set of _Stargate: New World _for his last birthday.

"That's top secret," the scientist says, sounding both exasperated and, begrudgingly, like she's started to relax. Like she's thinking Nick is just some dumb kid who unwittingly stumbled into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. Because that makes sense.

Nick can't really blame her, though, since that was sort of the point and also he's been cheating a tiny bit and using his minor telepathic skills to influence that opinion.

"Can I touch it?" he asks.

"What? No!"

And then three things happen at once:

Nick reaches out with one hand to brush the blue of the vortex with his palm…

The scientist leaps forward with a shriek, grabbing for and missing Nick's arm…

And Nicholas Braddock-Wilson is whisked out of his time and into another.

000

Betsy Braddock is enjoying her date with her boyfriend, Wade Wilson. So far, everything has been going well.

Naturally, Betsy is suspicious.

It isn't that she doesn't usually enjoy her dates with Wade, but it's rare that they actually go out anywhere, and for everything to be going smoothly, well. It isn't unheard of, but Betsy's still holding her breath. This is a _nice _restaurant. It's not even a _Mexican _restaurant. Wade is really pulling out all the stops tonight. There are no chimichangas in sight.

Also, there is a distinct lack of ninjas, which automatically puts this date at the top of the Top Ten Best Dates Betsy and Wade have ever had.

Betsy sips at her wine and smiles at her boyfriend. Wade grins back, a real grin, not the slasher-smile he sometimes wears when he's killing things. This grin is for her.

She lets herself relax and enjoy the moment while it lasts.

It lasts for exactly ten more seconds and then the teenager falls through the ceiling.

Betsy, being the calm, professional X-Woman that she is, leaps out of her seat with a shriek. The kid flails, sprawling across their table and getting food everywhere. Other patrons shout. Waiters threaten lawsuits.

Wade reaches around the kid and picks up another of the complimentary dinner rolls.

"You look familiar," he informs the strange teenager, who is now staring at him in shock –as if _Wade_ is the weird one here! Who is it that's lolling about on a table top, here, hmm?

A thought occurs to Wade and he frowns.

"Have I threatened you before?" he asks suspiciously, holding up a butter knife pointedly. If it were anybody else, this wouldn't be the least bit menacing, but Wade has a gift for turning completely harmless objects into instruments of terror, so a butter knife is basically a much smaller katana in his hands.

For some reason, however, this question just makes the kid start laughing hysterically. Wade is sort of offended.

"What is going on?" Betsy snaps. "Wade, who is this kid?"

"No idea," Wade replies cheerfully, not noticing the shocked and slightly hurt look that crosses the teenager's face at the dismissal.

Betsy's hands fly to her hips and she glares at her boyfriend. "Wade! Do you even care?"

"Care?" his face, scars hidden from the other people in the restaurant by an image generator, is puzzled. "About what?"

Now she looks mad, and her own image generator is starting to slip, affected by her telekinesis. Her purple hair, piled up on her head in a curling up-do, is starting to show through.

"One evening, Wade! Just _one evening_, can't we go out and have _one _normal date? Is that too much to ask? It isn't the general stuff that comes from being mutants –_that _I understand. _That _I can live with."

She's nearly screeching by this point. The glasses on the table are starting to rattle. The strange teenager has slid from the table and is standing next to it looking vaguely perplexed and somewhat more amused.

"It's the stuff that follows _us _around, specifically. To be even _more _specific, they follow _you _around. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents! Omega Red! _Ninjas_! _Especially _the ninjas! I swear, it's like you have some sort of ninja _magnet_!"

She pauses. Wade looks half-contrite, half-amused.

"I don't think I can deal with this anymore," she says slowly.

The amusement drops from both the kid's and Wade's faces instantly.

"What does that mean?" Wade asks quietly. Both he and Betsy have completely forgotten about the teen.

Betsy gathers her coat and purse. "It means I'm leaving," she said. "Goodbye, Wade." Turning on her heel, she marches out of the restaurant.

Wade freezes, then reaches into a pocket of his coat in an almost trance-like state and fishes out a black ring with a skull engraved on the side. Staring down at this, he frowns hard.

Behind him, the kid chokes. A yellow box had just appeared above Wade's head. None of the others in the restaurant notice it, but Wade glances up and sighs when he sees the words being written in the box.

THIS IS THE WORST PROPOSAL IN HISTORY.

"Don't you think that's an exaggeration?" Wade says to the box.

NO.

Sigh. "You're right."

GO AFTER HER.

"I should –" Wade hesitates, uncharacteristically. "I should let her cool off."

FINE. BUT THEN GO GET HER.

"If she'll have me…" Wade mutters, stalking out of the restaurant and leaving the teenager behind.

And Nick just stands there, shocked speechless by the fact that he has just accidentally caused his parents to break up before he was even born.

000

Okay, Nick, think. Think _logically_. One, I'm in the past. Two, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a time machine _that's not fair I've always wanted a time machine but Mum said they hadn't been invented yet, _stop. Focus, Weapon XI! Three…

Three, I just watched my parents break up, thereby ending my existence before it could even begin.

Conclusion…

"This sucks," Nick announces to the air. He is currently in front of the X-men Institute, which thankfully is in the same exact place he is used to it being.

Rocking back and forth on his heels and toes, Nick chews on his bottom lip and considers his options.

He should go to S.H.I.E.L.D. The smart thing to do would be to go to Nick Fury and beg for help. That would be the responsible thing to do. He grimaces.

This is unacceptable. He is Nicholas Braddock-Wilson! He is Weapon XI for goodness' sake. He is a highly trained combat expert who wears his katana like comfortable extensions of his body. He is currently packing no less than seven different types of weaponry all over his body. Ninja all over the world tremble at the sight of him. Well. If any of them ever actually caught sight of him, then they would tremble for sure. Nicholas Braddock-Wilson does not _whine. _He is a _tough cookie._

But Nick's parents have just broken up in front of him and he is just turned nineteen years old and alone in a place that, for all its superficial familiarity, is foreign to him. The part of Nick that will always be childlike and slightly more needy than he'd like to admit is sniffling pathetically. He wants his parents. Mum would kiss his head and teach him to break things with his mind. Dad would take him out and let him run wild through the streets of NYC until whatever is bothering him has been dragged out of him, kicking and screaming, and been beaten to death in an alleyway.

Nick has the best parents, no lie.

But those parents are currently not available, and their younger counterparts certainly aren't in a comforting mood.

That means that Nick needs to get his advice from another source. And when Mum and Dad can't help…

Uncle Jimmy is the next best thing.

Leaping up and grabbing a handily protruding spike sticking out of the stone wall of the Institute (he takes a moment to bless _Oncle_ Remy's paranoia and preparedness), Nick scrambles up and over the wall.

The instant his feet hit the grass, he freezes. When nothing explodes or leaps out from the bushes to tear his throat out, he relaxes and straightens up from his crouch.

Slightly disgusted, he sets out across the lawn. Honestly, it's like they aren't even trying. No lasers, no spinning saws, no adamantium claws buried to the knuckle in his chest cavity?

_Laura must not be home._

Nick reaches the front porch of the mansion and stretches out one long gloved finger to push the doorbell. It buzzes, high-pitched and sharp. In Nick's time, the Institute's doorbell sounds like sleigh bells. For some reason, the difference is extremely depressing.

Before he can do something absolutely mortifying, like start crying, a voice echoes from inside the mansion. "I'll get it!"

Nick finds himself smiling suddenly. He knows that voice.

He is opening his mouth to call out a greeting when the door swings wide and he completely forgets how to speak.

Kitty Pryde stands before him, but she is a Kitty that he has never seen before. She has a familiar bob cut that swings around her chin, and bright blue eyes that sparkle with warmth and welcome. Her pink shirt shows off a thin strip of skin between her skin-tight jeans and the hem.

All of this is all very familiar to Nick. This is how Kitty looks in his time.

Except for the fact that she is young, younger than Nick has ever seen her, even in pictures. She can't be any older than Nick himself and he can hardly keep himself from staring because who knew that Aunt Kitty had a blue, glittery eye shadow phase?

"Oh, hello," Kitty was saying, her face lighting up in a welcoming smile. "Are you here to see the professor?"

"Uh, no, not really," he manages. "I need to see Uncle Jimmy, actually?"

"_Who_?" she asked, looking very confused.

"Oh, uh, Logan. I need to see Logan," he stutters.

"Oh!" her face clears and she steps back to allow him inside. "Come on in. We're in the middle of dinner. Are you hungry?" she asks as she leads him through the halls.

"Actually… yes," he answers with some surprise. It makes sense though. His last meal was a long time ago. Like, twenty years.

"Great, you can join us!" Kitty grins over her shoulder at him, casting a gently admiring look up and down his tall, well-muscled frame. He swallows hard and she turns back and puts a bit of flirtatious sway into her walk.

Nick is suddenly faced with the uncomfortable realization that this girl is _hot._

_Aunt Kitty. I've called this girl "Auntie" my whole life. She is _not_ sexy, she's… my _aunt_!_

_And she is hot, _his inner voice supplies helpfully. Nick resists the urge to slap himself in the face.

"Hey, everyone!" Kitty says, entering the kitchen. "This is… um, actually, I don't _know_ your name?"

"_What_? You let him inside without even asking his _name_?" a thick Southern accent judges incredulously. Nick turns to look because that's _Tante_ Rogue's voice and then _whoa_.

"What are you _wearing_?" he blurts out before he can stop himself.

Rogue raises one highly indignant eyebrow. "_Excuse me_?"

Nick sputters. Rogue's face is heavily made up in dark purple eye shadow and lipstick. Her clothes match the make-up, all dark purple and black. The real clincher though, was the necklace.

"Is that a _chain-choker_?" he asks.

"So what if it is?" Rogue challenges. Dazed, Nick turns a betrayed look upon Remy LeBeau, who is sitting quietly next to Rogue and appears to be stifling chuckles.

"And you! This…"

"Remy thinks it's kinda hot," Remy shrugs.

Nick's face turns red because, okay, _yeah_. It _is _hot.

"I –" he starts, only be cut off by Logan, who growls.

"Enough. I suggest that you tell us who you are and why you're here before you dig yourself any deeper. Bub."

Nick breathes a sigh of relief. It's just like home.

000

They gather in the living room, sprawling across chairs, couches, and the floor in order for everyone to squeeze in.

Remy and Rogue are seated on one of the loveseats, with Kitty in between them and Kurt, blue and fuzzy, perched on the back of the seat. Piotr sits on the floor in front of them. Jean and Scott have their own loveseat, where they sit holding hands and looking generally nervous. Bobby, Ray, and Sam are all trying to sit on the same chair, and Logan is standing in the center of it all with his arms crossed over his chest looking vaguely murderous. This does not worry Nick, because vaguely murderous is Logan's default expression.

No, what Nick is currently worrying about are the four girls who are all sitting on the other couch, staring at him unabashedly.

Jubilee, Amara, Tabitha, and Rahne. Four women who he calls "aunts," all four of them _smoking _hot.

Why were all his aunts so hot in the past? Even _Jean _is gorgeous. Nick feels personally betrayed.

"So lemme get this straight," Logan is saying gruffly. "Your name is Nicholas Braddock-Wilson, you're from the future, and Betsy and Wade are your parents."

Nick forces himself to ignore all the hot aunts and nods. "That's right."

Scott scoffs. "I don't believe it."

Nick rolls his eyes. "Why not?"

"Because!" Scott sputters. "Time travel isn't possible!"

"You know," Nick says thoughtfully, "that's what I thought before I _crashed my own father's proposal to my mother_!"

Kitty squeals. "He was going to propose!" She claps her hands and beams at Nick, who gives her a sickly look.

"Yeah, and then she broke up with him when I fell onto their table at the restaurant because the Stargate dropped me out of the ceiling."

There is silence for a moment. Well. Almost silence. Nick can hear Uncle Bobby whispering to Uncle Ray, "Dude, S.H.I.E.L.D. has a Stargate! How cool is that?"

"They broke up?" Jean says in a small voice. Nick nods, suddenly exhausted.

"I… I need help," he admits, hating to do it but having no idea what else he can do. "I _have _to get them back together. I… they're my _parents_."

They all stare at him with what looks like pity, or, in some cases, simple sympathy. Nick suddenly wishes desperately for Laura. Laura would not look at him like he was pathetic or act like she was sorry for all his woes. Well, she would look at him like he was pathetic, but that is fairly usual for Laura and has nothing to do with how she actually feels about him.

It is Remy who breaks the silence.

"So we play matchmaker," he says, like it's the most natural thing in the world. "We get Betsy and Wade back t'gether."

"And how do you think we're gonna do that, Swamp Rat?" Rogue asks, the nickname rolling off her tongue with affection that Nick can practically see. He wonders if they're actually a couple yet. He doesn't remember what year they got married, but he's fairly sure it was after his parents.

"Yeah, Remy," Kurt speaks up for the first time, "I do not think this is something that can be solved just like that." He snaps his fingers and Nick thinks, not for the first time, that Uncle Kurt has really cool hands.

"Why not?" Remy asks, shrugging.

"Because," Jean says, sounding slightly condescending in an unfortunate way that doesn't even mean anything –it's just the way Jean talks to everybody who isn't Scott, Storm, Logan, or the Professor, "you can't just make people fall in love, Remy. Life doesn't work that way."

He frowns. "They're already in love, Jeanie. They're just being silly right now."

"Then why do we need to do anything?" Jubilee points out. "Why can't we just wait for them to get back together on their own?"

Nick winces. "Mum was pretty mad," he says. "I… I don't know if she'd even talk to Dad if he tried."

"That is just weird," Rogue said, wrinkling her nose. "You calling them mom and dad."

Nick smirks at her, one of his first smiles since falling through the vortex. "You think so, _Tante Rogue_?" Her eyes widen and a blush spreads across her face as she sneaks a glance a Remy, who is grinning so broadly Nick can almost count his teeth, probably thinking of the one reason that Nick would use the French term for Rogue and reveling in his plans for the future.

"Ahem," she clears her throat. "So, we have to get Betsy and Wade to realize that they're perfect for each other and can't break up just because of all the weird stuff that happens to them because of Wade's issues. How do we do that?"

Everyone looks at Remy, leaning forward in seats or, in Logan's case, raising one eyebrow in mild irritation (which, for Logan, is practically hanging on every word). Remy looks around at them all and rolls his eyes in mild disgust.

"Honestly, it's like y'all ain't ever seen a romantic comedy before."

* * *

**A/N: It's finished, it's finished, it's finally finished, do you see it? It's done! Ahhhhhhhh!**

**Dark Lord, if you would like to let me know how often you want updates, I am prepared for anything.**

**A note about time: I am setting the "past" portion of the story in 2006, 3 years after the end of the X-men: Evolution series. Presumably, Nick is born in 2007, and the "future" portion of the story takes place in 2026, when Nick is 19.**

**Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own the **_**Stargate **_**franchise. Also, **_**Stargate: New World **_**does not actually exist. Sorry, **_**Stargate **_**fans, they haven't made any new series yet. **


	2. Part II

**Disclaimer: "We shall have a magnificent garden party, and you're not invited." –Captain Jack Sparrow**

**A/N: So, guess what I'm doing today?**

**I bet none of you guessed, but that's okay, I'll tell you anyway. I'm GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL!**

***does a happy little dance* So I won't be online for the next few days, so when I get back, I can be horrified by the way my inbox has blown up in my absence and everything I've missed on Tumblr.**

**This chapter went way, way long. Did not see that coming. Lot of words though. **

**See end of chapter for some notes, please and thank you.**

* * *

**Part II: The One with the Rom-Com Shenanigans, the Brotherhood of Not-So-Evil Mutants, and the (Much) Older Woman**

* * *

Remy LeBeau is a planner. Most of the X-Men don't actually know this, because Gambit is very careful to never a) let them know how smart he is, and b) act like he actually cares about what they do.

Gambit joined the X-Men post-Apocalypse. There was no fanfare. Gambit just jumped the fence and let himself in the front door, strolled through into the dining room and where everyone was having dinner, and casually informed the Professor that the mansion's security could use some work. Piotr vouched for him, which would have been enough to recommend him, but then Rogue looked at him and _smiled_, which basically convinced everyone that, no matter what his past life was like, he was a miracle sent straight from God, and so they welcomed him into their home and the rest, as they say, is history.

However, joining the X-Men hasn't changed Remy all _that _much.

"It's like thieving," he says to the assembled group ready to carry out Operation Wetsy (Nick had given Kitty a dirty look for the name, but she had just smiled at him in that Kitty-way of hers and he'd let it go).

"Thieving?" Kurt says in disapproving tones. Remy rolls his eyes.

"It's in the _planning_," he says in an aggrieved manner. "Every job starts with a plan. What we need here is a _strategy_."

Nick leans forward eagerly. "What do we do?" he asks.

And no, he scowls at the inner voice smirking in his head, he does not sound _desperate_.

"Well, first," the man Nicholas will someday call '_Oncle _Remy' says dryly, "we need a better name." He looks at Aunt Kitty. "Operation Wetsy? _Seriously_?"

She turns her nose up at him and says, "You just have no culture, Remy. Clearly you have never heard of portmanteau couple names. It's a huge thing now."

Nick chuckles darkly. "Not for long."

Kitty turns and glares at him. "Stop doing that! All morning you've been going: 'I am from the future. I know everything! I know how _The Dark Knight _ends, even though it's still in the pre-production stages in your time!'"

"It's not like I _told _you the _ending_, give me _some _credit," Nick rolls his eyes and turns to survey his motley crew.

After Remy's shocking revelation the night before ("Why are you all looking at Remy like that?" "You watch _rom-coms_, Remy?" "You _don't?_"), Logan had insisted that everyone go to bed, get some sleep, and work on the problem of Betsy and Wade's relationship in the morning.

"And for the love of Lee, would someone feed this kid?" he had added, jerking his thumb at Nick, who blinked in surprise, having forgotten about eating in the rush of meeting all of his aunts' and uncles' younger selves.

Now, here they are, some sixteen or so hours later, in various states of alertness and willingness to be here.

Jean and Scott had opted out of helping with the plan, claiming (Jean) that there were plenty of people already involved, and (Scott) that anyway, the whole idea was stupid.

Nick makes a mental note to pee on Uncle Scott a lot when he is born. If he's ever born.

Kitty, Kurt, Rogue, Piotr, Bobby, Ray, and three of the Hot Aunts have joined Remy and Nick in the living room. Professor Xavier is in Scotland, according to Logan, so hopefully Nick will be able to fix his parents and find a way home without him having to come home. Storm is vaguely disapproving, and doesn't deign to descend from her greenhouse.

"Where's Rahne and Sam and Jamie?" Remy asks, looking around at who he has to work with.

Tabby yawns and stretches, pushing her chest out with a sly grin in Nick's direction. He pouts. They're all doing this on purpose. He wishes Laura was here.

"Rahne and Sam took Jamie to see a movie," Tabby explains finally. "He was going to go with some friends from school, but they bailed last minute, so Rahne and Sam took him as a treat."

It's weird, being older than Uncle Jamie. Seeing the guy who used to put on entire puppet shows all by himself for you when you were a baby as a kid himself is kind of disconcerting.

Not as disconcerting as Tante Rogue apparently being Goth, but close.

"Okay, fine," Remy says absentmindedly, no doubt acknowledging the basic fact that Jamie and Rahne wouldn't be much help with this endeavor anyway, being that Jamie is fourteen years old and Rahne's idea of a romantic movie is Lady and the Tramp. Which, yeah, but still.

"Now, we need to set Betsy and Wade up on a date. A really special date that will remind them of how much they love each other."

"Ooh! Like recreating their first date!" Kitty squeals. "It'll be so romantic!" Jubilee beams, nodding.

"Like in _50 First Dates_." She and Tabby and Amara clap their hands and giggle.

"Whoa, hold the train, guys," Rogue say suddenly. "I think we're forgetting a very crucial factor here." She pauses pointedly, looking around at her expectant audience. "This is _Betsy and Wade _we're talking about here."

Everyone is quiet for a moment. Then, "I don't get it," says Bobby.

Nick looks confused. "Yeah, I'm with Uncle Bobby on this one," he says, not noticing the startled look Bobby gives him. "What does them being Betsy and Wade have to do with anything."

Kurt stares at him. "Seriously? They are _your_ parents and you haven't noticed?"

Nick frowns. "Noticed what?"

"Betsy and Wade aren't exactly what you'd call romantic, kid," Rogue explains. Still confused, Nick just stares at her. She looks to Kitty for help.

"Um, like," Kitty says thoughtfully, "the thing with the ninjas? Yeah, that's not really romantic."

Nick laughs a little. "You mean the way Mum and Dad end up running away from sock-heads nearly every time they go out?" He stops laughing and frowns again. "What's not romantic about that?"

His future aunts and uncles look at each other carefully. "You wanna handle this one, Swamp Rat?" Rogue finally says to Remy, who looks more amused than anything else. He shrugs.

"Sure. Look, _gosse_," he starts, "most people do not think being chased by ninjas is romantic or even mildly fun in any way."

"Why not?"

"Because," Remy continues patiently, "most people do not find the idea of imminent death exciting."

Nick still does not look as though he understands the point. "Why not?" he asks again, sounding frighteningly reasonable, Kitty thinks. "It's not _their _imminent death." He raises what he probably thinks is a playful eyebrow, but it mostly makes him look like he's mentally plotting to take over the planet. "Unless you're seriously suggesting that _my _parents would come out the worst in a battle with ninja."

They are forced to pause for a moment and acknowledge the truth in this statement.

"But," Rogue holds up on long, gloved finger and Nick thinks sadly of the way his _Tante _used to dig her uncovered hands into his tummy and tickle him until he screamed with laughter. _Someday,_ he tells her mentally, lowering his telepathic shields just enough to let his thoughts brush against hers briefly. She looks at him suddenly, startled. He smiles at her, just the barest quirk of his lips. _Someday, _he thinks again, _you tickle me with your bare hands and the only thing you take away from me is whatever was making me sad._

Rogue gasps, whatever she was about to say completely lost in the sudden flood of excitement and anticipation rolling through her emotions. Nick blinks hard and back peddles frantically, shielding his mind and shutting her out. She doesn't notice, too busy trying not to smile hugely and failing entirely.

"What is going on in here?" Scott and Jean burst through the living room doors, Jean sweeping in like a dignified queen and Scott flailing around a bit. Nick makes a mental note to forgive Scott a little bit.

"What's going on here?" Scott asks again when he's managed to pull himself together. He glares at Remy. "Jean said Remy was kissing Rogue again!"

Somewhat distracted from her sudden happiness, Rogue protests, "He wasn't even! And," now she glares, "what business is it of yours if he _was_?"

Remy chuckles. "That's right, _chere_," he says, winking. "I'll kiss you anytime you like, okay?"

She rolls her eyes and looks back to Scott and Jean. "Why the heck did you think he was kissing me?"

Jean answers, sounding apologetic. "Sorry, both of you. It's just that…" she shifts uncomfortably. "Well, you were projecting really loudly all of a sudden, and you were just…" she glances at Remy nervously, "well, you seemed really… excited and happy. Which was basically the same feeling you gave off last time Remy kissed you and I guess I just… it took me off guard and I jumped to conclusions. Sorry."

"It's fine," Rogue says, ignoring Remy, who looks like he's about to asphyxiate himself from not saying all the flirty, dirty, or possibly incredibly sappy things he's thinking about right now.

Jean gives her another apologetic smile and then leaves, dragging Scott with her by the arm. Rogue blows out an exasperated breath and shoots a glare at everybody.

"What?" she snaps. "Let's get back to Betsy and Wade, okay?"

Grinning broadly, Nick says, "You were saying something before?"

She glares at him too, because the whole thing was his fault, but she still says, "What I was _going _to say is that Betsy doesn't particularly like ninjas. Neither does Wade, for that matter, but the difference is that Wade enjoys fighting with them, while Betsy would rather just avoid them altogether. And even Wade doesn't want his dates with Betsy to be interrupted by fighting all the time."

Sighing, Nick says, "I still don't see what's so unromantic about beating up some bad guys while on a date. That sounds like a pretty good date to me."

Kitty laughs. "You have a twisted idea of romance, Nick."

Nick shrugs. "That's what my girlfriend and I do on our dates, mostly."

They all stop and stare at him in something like shock.

"You have a _girlfriend_?" Bobby sputters. Next to him, Ray mutters crossly about how "sometimes I think that I'll never understand girls."

"Uh, yeah?" Nick grins a little, imagining what their faces would look like if he told them _who _his girlfriend is.

"That's weird," Bobby mutters. Nick rolls his eyes.

"No weirder than you and Aunt Jubilee," he points out, only to wince when Bobby and Jubilee turn shocked gazes on each other. "Oops."

"We…" Jubilee says faintly.

"Let's get back to Mum and Dad," Nick says hastily, turning back to Remy. "What other ideas do you have?"

"Hey," Logan interrupts, sticking his head in the door and jerking it gruffly in the general direction of the garage. "You're gonna have to put this little pow-wow on hold, Gumbo. We've got a little problem down at the mall. Again."

All of the X-men groan. Nick looks confused.

"What's happening at the mall?" he asks.

000

"Seriously? Are you _kidding _me?"

Kurt frowns at him. "What?" he says defensively. "It's not our fault! They're the ones attacking the mall!"

"I know but… _seriously_?"

When Logan said, "little problem," Nick naturally interpreted this to mean that some evil abomination from the eldritch realms had broken through and decided, for some reason only comprehensible to evil abominations from eldritch realms, to attack the Bayport Mall. As it turns out, this is not the case.

Apparently the understatement Logan is prone to in Nick's time is a more recent development than he'd thought. Though, Nick notices, it's not like Uncle Jimmy has come out to help the X-men deal with the "problem" either.

Probably because the "problem" consists of five angst-ridden teenagers and one hyperactive pyromaniac who is, self-admittedly, "only in it for the fire."

"The Brotherhood?" Nick moans. "We interrupted our planning for the _Brotherhood_?"

"They're the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants!" Bobby says indignantly. "They're dangerous!"

Nick laughs so hard he nearly falls off his perch on the mall balcony.

"Dangerous!" he hoots. "That's a good one." Noticing that no one else is laughing, he stops and looks around. "Really?"

"Really," Ray says earnestly. "These guys are bad news."

Nick gives him an unimpressed look. "Really? Two years after Apocalypse tried to take over the world and you guys _still _haven't stopped fighting with the Brotherhood?"

"They're evil!" Kurt protests.

"They're _idiots_," Nick shoots back. "Well, except Aunt Wanda," he adds quickly, superstitiously glancing over his shoulder. It wouldn't be the first time Aunt Wanda had heard someone talking about her and appeared silently behind them.

Kurt sputters. "Did you just say '_Aunt _Wanda'?"

Nick rocks back on his heels, holding himself on the balcony with his fingertips. "Yeah." He shrugs. "In the future, you guys have stopped fighting and they hang out at the mansion all the time."

Bobby looks like he swallowed a bug. Ray's eyes are so wide he looks like an anime character (and no, Nick tells his inner voice, I don't watch anime; Dad does). Kurt just stares.

"We're… friends?" he manages finally.

"Well," Nick says dubiously. "I don't know that I'd go _that _far. But Wanda gets along with the Aunts really well, and Pyro, well. You know that he and _Oncle _Remy and Uncle Pete used to be Magneto's Acolytes. They've been friends for a long time. Everyone else just sort of… tolerates each other."

Kurt shakes his head. "I don't know if I can handle this," he says, almost to himself. Nick grins.

"Just pretend that it's a movie," he suggests. "And you've just been given a major spoiler." Kurt glares at him.

"That doesn't help! I don't know how to handle those either!" This is true: Uncle Kurt has never reacted particularly well to spoilers.

"Shhh!" Shadowcat hisses suddenly over the comms. "They're here!"

"Any sign of Scarlet Witch?" Cyclops says, all business. "She's the most dangerous, so keep an eye out."

"She's in Australia with Pyro," Gambit puts in irritably. "They've been there for nearly a week, which you would know if you ever bothered to actually listen when I tell you things."

"Shhh!"

And then there they are –Avalanche, Blob, Toad, and Quicksilver, arranged in a back to back formation that looks half-hearted to even Bobby's less-experienced eyes.

"We're here to… break stuff," Lance says unenthusiastically. The X-men exchange cautious, confused looks.

"Um. You aren't," Rogue points out. "I mean, you're just standing there."

Lance rolls his eyes and the ground rumbles slightly. "Pietro's dad is throwing another hissy fit because Professor X won't call him back or something, so he sent us out to do some damage."

Kitty pushes forward and puts her hands on her hips, glaring at Lance. "He's in Scotland!" she snaps, and Nick rolls his eyes yet again because clearly they are in the middle of fight number 473 between these two. "He can't answer any phone calls because Storm made him leave his cell phone at home. He's been working too hard."

Lance shrugs. "I dunno anything about that. All I know is when Magneto tells us to do something, we do it, or we pay for it later."

"Oh, Lance," Kitty's voice softens. "You know you could come back with us. All of you," she adds hastily, glancing towards the rest of the Brotherhood, who look bored. "We could help you. The professor would –"

And now is when Nick has to step in, because as much as he knows where this is going… well. He knows where this is going.

"Hold it right there, Rumbly," he calls out, dropping down from the balcony, ignoring Bobby's frantic squeak of terror at his sudden freefall. Lance stands frozen in place, one hand outstretched to brush against Kitty's cheek. Nick strides up and falls in beside Kitty, who is giving him a dirty look.

"Nick," she hisses, then stops. "Actually, what should we call you? I mean, what's your call sign."

"Weapon XI," he answers comfortably, "or just Eleven, if you like."

"Well then, _Eleven_," she huffs. "This does not concern you."

"Uh," Nick says helpfully. "Actually, it does. I have every right to interfere when my aunt is about to make a mistake for the _bazillionth_ time. Look," he turns to Lance, who is looking simultaneously confused and suspicious, "I'm not saying that you're 'evil' or whatever, 'cause frankly, that's completely untrue. But you _are _a jerk, and you and Kitty are _obviously _not working out here, so why don't you do both of you a favor and just let it go, huh?" He smiles, and possibly this is a mistake, because Lance, who had been looking part amused and part ticked off up until then, suddenly just looks ticked off.

"No!" he snarls, jerking away from both Kitty and Nick. "I'll never give up!" Stretching out his hands, he yells, "Come on, guys! Let's teach these X-men how to rock!"

Toad groans even as he settles into a fighting stance. "Y'know, Avalanche, that joke is really getting old," he points out.

"Shut up!" Lance yells. The ground is starting to shake. Freddy punches his fist into his opposite hand. Pietro rolls his eyes and reluctantly crouches in preparation. Across the mall plaza, the X-men take up their own positions.

Nick sighs. "I guess we're fighting then."

BAMF! "I thought you liked fighting," Kurt says mildly from his sudden relocation behind Nick.

"I do," Nick says. He pouts. "But I like it better when it's ninja."

"Well then," Rogue says, "pretend they're ninja then." She looks irritated. This isn't unusual, but it does seem more focused than normal. The mall floor cracks under their feet and huge chunks of it start to peel up. She ends up standing on top of one that rose up suddenly, and looks down at Nick. "Let's talk about your parents."

"Yeah!" Nick brightens, because talking while fighting is fun too. "So, no recreating their first date. Any other ideas?" He dodges a punch from Blob, who is currently being used as a springboard for both sides and doesn't seem to be slowed down by it in the least. Nick considers drawing one of his katana, only to discard that idea and decide to just dodge for now. After all, he doesn't want to actually _kill _poor Freddy.

"We could throw them a party," Kitty suggests, elbowing Pietro in the eye and neatly phasing when he tries to retaliate.

"A part –oof! A party?" Nick asks, jerked off his feet by one huge arm. Hanging several feet off the ground, he ducks his head under his arm to glance at Kitty. "What kind of party?"

"An anniversary party!" she says brightly. "Only not, you know, on their actual anniversary. We'll just say we forgot that it wasn't their anniversary, and then we'll just be like, 'Oh, sorry, here, have a party anyway!'"

Rogue stares at her best friend. "I've gotta say, Shadowcat, of all the weird things you've ever said…"

"Hey!"

"Any _other _ideas –Nick, _watch out_!"

Freddy's huge fist plows into Nick's rib cage, lifting him off his feet and flinging him into one of Avalanche's concrete towers. All of the X-men cry out in horror and Kurt darts forward, only to stop short in surprise as Nick rolls over and sat up.

"Whoa," Nick says, shaking his head and blinking. "Trippy."

"Are you okay?" Kurt exclaims, helping Nick to his feet and looking him over anxiously.

"Oh, yeah," Nick laughs, throwing his chest forward and letting his ribs snap back into place and knit back together. "Right as rain." He laughs again at the look on Kurt's face. "Oh come on. You've never seen Logan do this?"

"Oh!" Kurt nods thoughtfully, blue tail lashing slowly behind him. "Oh yeah. I… didn't realize you could do that too."

"Dad's genes," Nick grins. Then, thoughtfully, "Although I guess they're technically Logan's genes anyway. Huh." He shrugs and Kurt smiles back weakly.

He peeks up at Nick. "Does it hurt?"

"Probably," Nick shrugs. "But I don't really notice anymore. After you've been stabbed in the chest some seven or eight times, the shock factor sort of wears off, and when you heal up immediately afterwards… well, let's just say the novelty contributes a lot to the pain, so I've gotten used to it."

"You get stabbed a lot?" Kurt looks shocked. Nick grins.

"My girlfriend," he says ruefully. "You could say she packs quite a punch." He turns away, and thus doesn't notice Kurt's eyes widen in recognition and then narrow in consideration.

Nick leaps back into the fray, but the damage has mostly been done. After he went flying, Gambit had charged a 5 of clubs and tossed it right into Freddy's face. The resulting explosion had only been exacerbated by Piotr's armored form charging into the other boy and tackling him to the ground.

Kitty is sitting on Pietro's back, arms crossed over her chest and glaring at Lance from around Scott, who is standing in between them in an attempt to not have to deal with a homicide today. Jean is supervising Bobby and Ray as they hold a subdued Toad between them. The slimy teenager doesn't look particularly like he cares that his team lost the battle. Freddy is sitting down and holding his head. Rogue grimaces and pulls her gloves back on.

"This boy," she says, jerking her thumb at Freddy, "doesn't know his own strength. _Still_."

"Can we get back to getting my parents back together?" Nick asks impatiently. Lance startles.

"Wait a minute," he protests. "You guys aren't even taking this seriously. We were having a fight here!"

"And now it's over," Kitty shoots back. "Ugh, honestly, you _jerk_." Nick allows himself to be incredibly pleased with the venomous look she's giving her definitely-off-again boyfriend.

"Alright, enough," Scott interrupts, giving Kitty a stern look. She subsides with a grumble, but sticks her tongue out at Lance when Scott's back is turned.

"Focus, people!" Remy interjects here. "Lance, you have lots of experience breaking up and getting back together with someone. Any ideas?"

"Remy!" Rogue says. "No. We want someone whose ideas actually _work, _remember?"

"Hey!"

"Oh, right. Sorry, Rocky," Remy nods apologetically at Lance, who just sputters in indignation.

"Come _on_ guys! This is my existence we're talking about you know!" Nick shouts, waving his arms around.

"Calm down, _gosse_," Remy soothes. "We'll think of something. Everyone, think!" he orders, glaring at them all. Nick spares a moment to decide that _Oncle _Remy is _totally _his favorite. Rogue is giving Remy a fond look, no doubt imagining Remy playing with a baby Nick. (Which _totally _happens, one day, even if Nick can't remember it, because Betsy took a lot of videos of Nick's babyhood, so there's proof.)

"I've got it!" Kurt suddenly yells, startling Pietro so much that he actually manages to throw Kitty off his back. He doesn't bother to run, just pressing his hand to his heart and panting dramatically.

"Don't _do_ that!" he scolds. And then he looks up. "Also, what the heck is going on and can I get in on it?"

Kurt beams at him. "_Absolutely_."

000

"So basically," Kurt explains once they are all safely dressed in civilian clothing and sitting in a café that is really, really old when Nick takes Laura there twenty years later but is only regular-old at the moment, "what we need to do is have Betsy and Wade realize how much they really mean to each other. And what better way to do that, than to have one of them _rescue _the other from danger?"

They are silent for a moment. Pietro sips at a latte while Nick munches somewhat glumly on a blueberry muffin.

"That could actually work, I think," Remy says finally, slowly. Nick looks up hopefully. If Remy thinks it'll work, there's a chance that it actually might. "Yeah… Remy can see that."

"So we what? Put Betsy in danger?" Kitty asked, sounding slightly pouty about her idea being shut down.

Nick thinks about it seriously. "Well, actually… I think Mum is the one who needs more convincing at this point." He looks down and scowls at the table sullenly. "She was pretty mad."

"So we put Wade in danger," Rogue says, finishing the thought and smiling sweetly at Nick, which scares him a little bit because _Tante _Rogue doesn't often smile nicely at anyone.

"How?" Kitty says, doubtfully. "I mean, I know we've seen some pretty nasty stuff before, and don't get me wrong, Pietro, it's nice of you to help, but come on. _Wade?_ This is Deadpool we're talking about –it's going to take a massive ninja invasion and possibly some evil abomination from the eldritch realms to actually put him in _danger_."

Aunt Kitty is a little bit his favorite, too, Nick muses.

"Put who in danger?" a drawling British accent purrs and Nick is up and out of his seat, hissing and spitting like a cat.

Emma Frost stares at him in amusement. "I must say, that's not the most genial welcome I've ever been subjected to," she says, sliding gracefully into an empty chair she telekinetically pulls over from one of the other tables and settles next to Scott. It's a good thing they're the only ones in the café at the moment. And that the rest of the Brotherhood had opted to go home after Pietro had decided he wanted coffee more than he wanted to get into another fight he wouldn't win.

"You," Nick starts furiously, only to bite back his angry words. It's hard. He'd like nothing more than to rip the white-clad witch apart with his bare hands, but if he does that there will likely be a) unfortunate questions from the professor, and b) a serious chance that he will end up touching some part of her cleavage. And he really doesn't want that, but it'll be unavoidable, because her shirt is hardly modest to start with, and if he starts ripping, well… Nick stops himself before he starts projecting and Emma picks up on what he's thinking.

"Me?" she asks, pleasantly puzzled. "Have we met?"

"Not yet," he snarls. The rest of the X-men are staring at the two of them warily, probably because Nick looks about one tap of a carefully French-manicured fingernail away from pulling out his pair of doorknobs and unloading both clips into her.

"Yet?" if anything, she sounds even more amused. "Are you a time-traveler?"

He bares his teeth at her like a wolf. "Sure am."

"Then whatever it is that I've done to cause you to hate me so, I probably haven't done it yet." Her voice is sharp, but still calm, the lilts in her accent soothing Nick against his will. She sounds like his mum, always has, just a little, and it's always annoyed him, even as he relaxes at the sound of British syllables falling into place in the words.

"No," he agrees reluctantly, "you haven't. Though," he glares pointedly at her hand resting gently on Scott's knee, "you seem to be starting in on it." She notices his stare and pulls her hand away. Scott doesn't notice. To his credit, he hadn't appeared to notice her touching him in the first place. He wasn't even paying attention to the conversation, instead holding a whispered conference with Jean over the phone.

Emma holds Nick's eyes for just a second longer. The X-men still in the café (Rogue, Kitty, Kurt, and Remy) hold their breath. All the rest have either gone home to play video games (Bobby and Ray) and cook (Jean), or to their studio to "get some painting done" (Piotr). The Hot Aunts Trio hadn't even bothered to come out for the Mall Brawl (as Nick's inner voice, which is starting to sound suspiciously like Kitty, has labeled it in his head).

"Well," Emma says finally, "I can see I'm not wanted here." She stands up and offers them all a graceful smile. "I'll see you all another time, then?" Not waiting for an answer, she sweeps out of the café. Nick collapses back into his chair with a groan.

"What was _that _about?" Kitty says, leaning forward eagerly and poking Nick in the shoulder. "Come on, spill!"

"It was… crap. It was just. Emma," he finishes lamely. To his relief, they all accept this answer.

"Oh, we know about that, don't we, sugar?" Rogue says wryly, glancing at Remy. "Alllll about _Emma_." He groans.

"Do we ever." He shakes his head. "That _femme _scares me."

Nick really doesn't want to have to tell them about Emma Frost and her campaign to take Scott away from Jean in the future. He especially doesn't want to tell them about the few months when they all thought Jean was dead and Emma swooped in to offer Scott "therapy" which eventually just devolved into some kind of telepathic affair –without Scott's consent. Nick had walked in on one of their "therapy" sessions when he was fourteen and found Scott with his face completely drained of life, apathetic in a way Scott had _never _been before, and Emma sitting across from him with a small smile on her face. His own telepath had flared abruptly, allowing him one sickening glimpse into Scott's mind. Emma hadn't noticed. Nick had covered his mouth with his hand and backed away. He'd never told anyone what he'd seen, but from that moment on, Emma Frost was _persona non grata _with Nick Braddock-Wilson, and when Jean came back, Emma left the Institute.

"It's her clothes," Rogue says, as if confiding to Nick. "I would have thought the Swamp Rat here would enjoy all of that skin showing. But no, he says it freaks him out."

"I'm so used to you, _chere_," Remy jokes. "All that skin makes me uncomfortable." She swats his arm playfully and Nick smirks to himself as he thinks _Not for long! _There's a little boy named Oliver in his own time, who follows Nick around and demands cuddles and piggyback rides, that proves Remy will one day be _more _than comfortable with Rogue's skin. He does agree about Emma's clothes though.

"All that white," he shudders. "It's blinding. And she's so…" he hesitates and Rogue supplies, "Promiscuous?"

"Yeah," he grins ruefully. "I've been stabbed more than once because of Emma's inability to keep her lips _and her lipstick _to herself."

Kitty frowns. "What does _that_ mean?"

Nick chuckles. "Let's just say my girlfriend doesn't like Emma much either, and finding Ms. Frost's rather… distinctive lipstick on my face sometimes, ah…"

"Drives her into a homicidal rage?" Kurt finished dryly. Nick grins again.

"Good thing I'm pretty much indestructible," he says happily. Kitty rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, about that," she says, and then she punches him, hard, in the shoulder.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"Don't ever do that again!" she scolds. "Just because you'll heal from whatever damage is done, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to prevent the damage from happening in the first place!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Alright, alright," Remy intervenes. "Let's get back to Betsy and Wade? How do we put Wade in enough danger for Betsy to come and rescue him?"

"We could just ask him to play along," Nick suggests. "This is the kind of thing Dad would think up anyway, he'd probably go with it."

"Hmm. Last resort," Remy says. "She's a telepath, so she'll know if something is up."

"Dad's got natural shields, same as me," Nick points out.

"Nick!" Kitty pouts at him. "We can't ask Wade to play along! That's not _how it's done_. Haven't you ever _seen_ a romantic comedy?"

"Does _The Golden Girls _count?" Nick asks hopefully. "Dad makes me watch it with him sometimes."

Remy sighs and puts his head in his hands. "We've got work to do," he says mournfully to Kurt. Kurt agrees sympathetically.

000

Back at the Institute, three Sandra Bullock movies, one flowchart presentation, and an impassioned speech, delivered by Kurt of all people, later, Nick is beginning to think that he might have gotten himself into something he isn't prepared to handle.

As it turns out, his aunts and uncles watch a _lot _of movies.

Most of them seem to star Sandra Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, or Katherine Heigl. He isn't really sure how to take that.

"So let me get this straight," he says skeptically. "In a romantic-comedy, neither of the two main characters should know that they're being manipulated?"

"Right," Kitty says happily. Nick nods slowly.

"And when setting up the… scenario we're trying to make work here, the element of surprise is key."

"Exactly," Kurt says earnestly.

Nick honestly feels a bit dazed. Laura's idea of a romantic comedy is _Jurassic Park_.

("You know this really isn't a romantic comedy," he told her once.

"Why not?" she tossed her head. "It's funny, that makes it a comedy, and I'm with you, that makes it romantic."

He really couldn't argue with her logic.)

Arguably, _Jurassic Park _does have the element of surprise, but it's generally more of the "Oh my lord, dinosaurs are about to eat us" variety, and less of the "Oh, a surprise engagement, how lovely" variety.

"Okay, so what do we do?"

They are all quiet for a moment as they deeply contemplate what exactly it will take to incapacitate Wade Wilson enough for his girlfriend to become worried and rescue him.

"Ninjas," Rogue finally says. "It's got to be ninjas."

"Definitely," Remy agrees firmly. "Only option."

"So where do we get ninjas?" Kitty asks.

"And how many of them will we need?" Kurt adds.

For some reason, they all turn and look at Nick.

"Why are you all looking at me?" he asks.

"Past experience would indicate that you, being the offspring of Betsy and Wade, are the most likely person to know where we could get a hold of some ninjas on short notice," Kitty points out.

This is a good point, and Nick tells her so.

"Thank you," she says happily, tossing her head and setting her hair swinging by her chin.

"So," Kurt says, nudging Nick's shoulder with his tail. "Ninjas. Let's ninja up this place."

Rogue gives her brother a very unimpressed look. "Seriously? I think you've been spending too much time with Bobby, little brother."

He sniffs, turning up his nose at her. "You're just jealous that you don't have my mad verbal skills."

"Um, no, Kurt, I'm pretty sure you've just been spending too much time with Bobby," Kitty pipes up. Kurt deflates, playfully putting on a woebegone face and turning to Nick.

"They don't appreciate me," he says mournfully.

"Not a bit," Nick replies cheerfully. Kurt blinks in surprise, and Remy laughs.

"Alright, alright," he says. "Stop teasing Kurt, everyone."

"See," Kurt says, recovering and grinning at Nick, "this is why Remy is my favorite." Kurt's grin was sharp, in every way imaginable. When Nick was little, it was Uncle Kurt whose grin he had imitated, though Betsy had drawn the line at filing Nick's tiny little teeth into points.

"Go get us some ninjas, _gosse_," Remy says. Nick thinks for a moment.

"Can I borrow a phone?" he asks. "I think I know a guy…"

000

The guy Nick knows doesn't ask questions, which is probably why he'll still be in business twenty years down the road when Nick is around to bribe him into revealing who hired him. His is a strictly mercenary business: if you didn't pay for privacy up front, he had no problems with selling you out to anyone willing to pay for the information.

Nick kind of likes him, even if he does hire out ninja.

"Okay," he says as he hangs up the phone. "We've got thirty ninja scheduled to arrive in the old skate-park at 18:00 hours."

"Will thirty be enough?" Kitty asks worriedly.

"Yes," Nick assures her. "Especially since we're going to even the playing field." Romantic comedies might be their territory, but ninja were his. "We're going to make sure Dad is relatively unarmed before setting the ninja on him."

His aunts and uncles look at each other warily. "Uh, Nick?" Rogue says. "Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, aren't we basically just turning thirty ninjas in your dad's direction and saying 'Go get him!'?"

"Yeah," Nick shrugs, "but if we don't level the field some, Dad will probably just kill them all. And that's not really what we're going for, right? I mean, we don't actually want to send people to their deaths, even if they are sock-heads. Besides," he adds, "Dad has a healing factor in his mutation, remember? They can't actually kill him."

"So why are we doing this then, if he's not really going to be in any danger?"

"Because there's only so many holes in Dad that Mum is willing to put up with before she intervenes. And she _hates_ it when he loses limbs because those take a while to grow back."

"Ewwww," Kitty grimaces.

Nick smirks at her. "She especially hates it when his head gets cut off. She says watching his neck knit back into his head makes her sick."

"Stop," Kitty holds up her hand and glares at him. "Just stop." Rolling his eyes, Nick does.

"Fine. But you know what I mean. Dad will be fine either way, but Mum will definitely come and save him anyway."

"This is going to fix everything," Remy says confidently. "It'll be great."

000

It is not great.

Wade arrives at the skate park, bemused, slightly irritated, and completely not in the mood for ninjas.

He is even _less _in the mood when he realizes that his doorknobs are missing, his grenades are gone, his daggers aren't in their sheaths, and his katana have been replaced with eskrima sticks.

Wade has no idea who could have stolen his weapons, and he has even less of an idea of who would be stupid enough to try it, but at the moment, his attention is being taken up by the thirty or so ninja who are currently trying to murder him.

And him with nothing but a pair of eskrima sticks.

_Stan Lee _but he wants to shoot something.

Nick watches in ever-increasing concern as his father battles four ninja at once. He's been stabbed at least four times, and Nick is pretty sure that the skate park's concrete will never again be the same shade of slightly-depressed grey. The bloodstains will probably never wash out.

And it's surprisingly hard to watch. Nick is used to it. Seriously used to it. It happens to _him _pretty frequently; you'd think just watching it wouldn't bother him. He's seen his dad be _decapitated _before, seen his mother sob while holding Wade's severed head in place, waiting for the blessed, all-important mutation in his genes to kick in and repair the damage.

Somehow, this is different.

"I don't like this," he confesses to _Tante _Rogue as Wade goes down under a pile of ninja.

"What's wrong?" she asks, arching one eyebrow over a green-painted eye.

Nick shrugs. "I don't really know," he says, "only that I don't like it."

Remy glances around Rogue and then makes a knowing sound in his throat.

"Yeah, _gosse_," he says. "Remy feel ya."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he smiles sympathetically. "It don't feel right for him to be getting kicked around down there an' you not be doing anything to help him." He shrugs. "I've been there. Kinda sucks."

"More than I thought it would," Nick admits. Rogue gives him a concerned look and exchanges glances with Remy.

"Do you wanna call it off, sugah?" she offers quietly. "'Cause we can do that. If you want us to call it off, we can do it right now. We can be down there in seconds."

He looks back and forth between the two of them for a moment, remembering his seventh birthday, when his mum and dad hadn't come back from a mission in Argentina yet, four days overdue, and nowhere in sight to sing "Happy Birthday" to him. Seven year old Nicholas was freaked out and upset, worried about his parents and fretting about his birthday, and _Oncle _Remy and _Tante _Rogue had given each other a _look_ and crouched down in front of him where he was sitting on the couch with his arms clasping his knees to his chest.

("Sugah," Rogue had said quietly. "Do you want us to go get your parents?"

"We can go right now," Remy had put in.

"We can be down there in a matter of hours," Rogue finished, completely serious, like it was no big deal to offer to fly down to Argentina at the whim of a seven year old child.)

Nick had managed a watery smile and nodded tentatively, knowing it was selfish, but not particularly caring.

Remy and Rogue didn't seem to think it was selfish though, because they immediately informed Uncle Jimmy that they were going to Argentina, and would he like to come? As it turned out, he did, and Nick's mum and dad had been retrieved from Argentina within a day, his mum completely uninjured and his dad holding grimacing as his hand reattached itself to his wrist, but otherwise fine (though, knowing Wade, that had probably not been the case an hour before).

Remy and Rogue had been unbearably smug. Uncle Jimmy had muttered something to a questioning Kitty about the trip back on the X-jet and something called a "mile high club."

Nick has the _best Tante _and _Oncle_, no lie.

"No," he says, straightening up a little as Wade resurfaces down in the skate park. "No, Mum will be here any second now. We did call her, right?" he asks, suddenly concerned.

"Yes, of course!" Kitty assures him, popping into the space next to him with Kurt, a blue tail wrapped around her waist and the smell of sulfur in the air.

"She will be here," Kurt adds, clapping a hand down on Nick's shoulder and grinning at him. He has to reach up a little bit to do it and Nick blinks in surprise as he realizes that Kurt is only 18 years old, a year younger than himself. How strange it is to be so much taller, to look at this blue, Fuzzy Elf and know that one day he will tower over Rogue and Kitty and brush shoulders with Wade easily. Right now, his head barely tops Nick's shoulder. He still isn't finished growing.

Nick is surprisingly getting tired of being in the past. He wants to go back to his own time, where his parents aren't broken up, his uncles are the right sizes, and none of the aunts are hot.

Or, at least, where the aunts _hadn't _been hot. He's terribly suspicious that, having once seen it, he won't be able to _un_see it.

Also, he _really _wants to see Laura.

"Die, sockhead!" Wade screeches below them, battering at ninja with an eskrima stick and then planting it in the ground to use as a pole to swing around and kick.

Nick carefully doesn't look at anyone.

"Does that remind anyone else…" Kitty trails off, looking at Nick in embarrassment.

"Yes," he says between gritted teeth before anyone else can. Remy and Rogue stifle chuckles. Kurt is confused.

"What?" he asks. "What does it remind you of?"

Nick _really_ needs to get back to his own time.

000

When Betsy Braddock arrives at the old skate park, she is decidedly not happy.

First, she had been called out of her bed at three o'clock this morning, after a disastrous date night with Wade that had ended with her storming out and Wade looking more crestfallen than she had ever seen him before. She feels a little bit guilty about that, but honestly, what did he expect? Sometimes, a girl just can't take it anymore.

After the _lovely _3 AM wake-up call (Which was nothing more than a milk run –muggers hanging around in the alley next to her apartment building. Idiots.), Betsy had tried to go back to sleep, only to find herself wide awake and unable to think of anything except Wade and Wade's stupid face, and the way his stupid face lights up with a stupid smile whenever he sees her, and the way his stupid hands are callous-free due to his stupid healing factor, and the way his stupid callous-free hands feel on her stupid face when he leans in to kiss her stupidly…

_And then_, she had to go to work, which meant she got to put up with skinny girls with bad attitudes (conveniently ignoring the fact that she basically was one of them, today) and a really bossy director who told her that the bags under her eyes were extremely unappealing, and if she didn't get them covered completely, she wouldn't be shooting today.

Betsy had fixed him with the iciest look she could muster, which must have been pretty icy, since he flinched and looked away. Betsy had let him stew for a few minutes before announcing that she would be taking the day off. The man had looked relieved.

Now, on top of a bad date, muggers at 3 AM, and modeling (or not-modeling, rather), Betsy has to go and save Wade's immortal butt from (what else?) _ninja_ in a _skate park_.

It has occurred to Betsy to ask Rogue why _she _couldn't just help Wade, but the other girl had hung up pretty quickly (but not before making some entirely unconvincing crackling noises and pretending to be going through a tunnel).

Honestly, sometimes Betsy's friends can be such _dorks. _

She's expecting Wade to be fighting fiercely, cutting down ninja left and right, and violently reaffirming her belief that he was a samurai in another life.

She is _not _expecting to find him buried under what looks like twenty something ninja, and fighting for his _life_.

Ugh.

Worst. Day. Ever.

000

"That could have gone better," Remy allows as they all reconvene in the den of the Institute.

"Ya think, Swamp Rat?" Rogue comments sarcastically, throwing herself down on one of the loveseats with a huff. Nick sits down beside her briefly, but then quickly jumps up to perch on the back of the sofa.

There had not been a heroic rescue. There hadn't been an epic showdown. There hadn't, in fact, been any type of showdown at all. Betsy had simply begun psychically stunning the ninjas, one after another, until they were all lying at Wade's feet. He had blinked at gaped up at her in astonishment. The X-Men, from their hiding places around the edge of the park, had winced at the frosty tone in Betsy's voice as she said, "You're welcome."

And then she had gone home and Wade had followed, slowly and with the yellow box that only Nick could see popping up over his head.

SHE SAVED YOU. THAT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING.

"Yeah, that she doesn't want me to die. That's not the same as love."

IT'S NOT?

Wade had frowned at the box. "Aren't you me?" he asked suspiciously. "Shouldn't you know that already?"

PROBABLY.

"Thanks," he'd muttered, and then he was gone and the X-Men had taken one look at Nick's crestfallen face and rushed him back to the Institute to regroup.

"We can still recover," Kitty assures Nick. "We'll just have to try something else to get them back together."

"Get who back together?"

They hadn't heard her come in.

"Oh!" Rogue smiles in welcome and just a little bit of nervousness. "Come on in."

"Who?" she repeats, coming fully into the room and leaning on the wall, languid and relaxed. Nick feels his mouth go dry.

Laura.

_Dark Lord of the X-Men_! his inner voice is squeaking. _She's here! She's… does my hair look okay? Is there anything in my teeth? How many fingers am I holding up? Wait, wrong question, why did I ask that? Look, _look_, Eleven, are you _looking_? She's _here_!_

"Betsy and Wade, _petite_," Remy says easily, flashing the newcomer a grin. He's always liked her, even when she was an emotionless killing machine who had no idea how to act around other people.

"They… broke up?" she asks carefully, uncertain about the terminology.

"Temporarily," Kitty rushes to insist.

X-23, also known as Laura Howlett and Logan's _daughter_ ("Who cares if you're a clone? DNA's DNA, ain't it, darlin'?"), raises one eyebrow and turns to Nick, who hasn't stopped staring at her since she walked in, tuned to her like he's a sunflower and she is the sun. (_Eww, metaphors_, his inner voice sneers.)

"And who are you?" she asks, her husky voice soft and curious.

He knows he must look like a lovesick puppy but he really can't help it, and sort of doesn't care to. "Nicholas Braddock-Wilson," he breathes. "I'm from the future. Betsy and Wade are my parents."

Laura accepts this in stride, the way she accepts most things in life. Where others might be confused or concerned about the concept of time travel, Laura just acknowledges the new information and moves on. "And why are you looking at me like that?" she asks.

Nick is now under scrutiny from everybody in the room and he wants to growl in frustration because he can't take his eyes off of Laura long enough to glare at them all. He hasn't seen her in weeks, and now, separated from the Laura he knows by at least twenty years, he just wants to stare and stare and never stop looking at her.

"Hi," he says, sounding shy and feeling nothing like it. "I'm sorry, I know it's kind of weird that I'm staring at you so intently, but I'm kind of obsessive about things sometimes."

_Which is something you'll find out_, he doesn't say_, in about sixteen years or so, when I'll develop a huge crush on you, but won't really sink in, I think, until a few years later, when I'll turn eighteen and you take me to China to celebrate my status as a legal adult and you finally kiss me while we're sitting on the roof of the imperial palace because _Aladdin _is a classic movie, and if you can't kiss the woman you're in love with on the roof of the imperial palace after jumping out of a hot air balloon, then why would you even bother with ninja-training, I ask?_

He doesn't say it, but only because Nick is secretly a little bit of a romantic, and he doesn't want to spoil any of it for Laura, doesn't want her knowing what's coming because that's really not fair to either of them. Not to Laura, and not to his unborn self who still has yet to be conceived, much less grow up and fall in love with the quiet, scowling, dark-haired girl who never spent enough time at the Institute while he was growing up for him to think of her as an aunt, but who spent just enough time there to tease and tempt and make him forget that she was twenty years older than him.

At first, everyone had been surprised and a bit concerned about the relationship. She was so much older than him, in more ways than one. She was also extremely violent and tended to solve her problems with her adamantium claws rather than talking about things. She wasn't conventional by any means, and she did relationships the same way she did everything else: fiercely. Was Nick sure he knew what he was getting into?

Nick did know. Nick knew because excuse them all, who did they think they were talking to, here? He saw nothing wrong with solving problems by slashing them to bits. Violence was a perfectly acceptable alternative to talking if you asked him. Adamantium claws? He has a _healing factor _in his genes. Conventional? _They're mutants_. Conventional doesn't even enter the equation. And Nick likes fierceness.

Nick _definitely _likes the fierceness.

And so Nick had asked Uncle Jimmy's permission (Logan had grunted and shoved Nick in the direction of Laura's motorcycle, so he had taken that as approval.), taken his father's advice and begun bringing Laura presents of sharp objects and things that exploded.

It was a very effective seduction method.

He can't say any of that though, can't tell Laura that one day they'll be so wrapped up in each other that the rest of the world seems like so much plasma.

So instead he just says, "It's weird that we're the same age right now," with a grin that she cannot possibly understand the nuances of right now.

"Hmm," she hums, raising both of her eyebrows and pushing off the wall to come sit by Rogue on the loveseat, directly beneath Nick's feet. It puts her back to him and he feels his heart skip a beat, which he'd always thought was just a stupid metaphor but now learns is a real thing that can really happen.

It doesn't hurt, of course, because Nick really doesn't feel pain, but it does feel really freakin' weird.

(But she's turned her back to him, and ohhhh, that sounds like it should be insulting and hurtful, but at this point, Nick speaks Laura's language as well as anyone can and he knows that showing him her back is Laura's way of accepting him and Nick feels like singing. Except for that he doesn't sing, but if he did, he'd feel like singing.)

"So what are we doing?" Laura is asking and Nick really will stop staring at her any second now, he _will._

"We are getting Betsy and Wade back together again," Kitty answers happily. "Only our first attempt didn't go so well."

Laura is quiet for a moment and then she says, hesitantly, "Have you thought about a romantic dinner?"

They all look startled. "That's a good idea," Remy agrees, making a note on the whiteboard he's produced from out of nowhere (sometimes, Nick could swear that Remy's coat is like Mary Poppins' bag).

"On a rooftop," Laura adds firmly.

"Why on a rooftop?" Rogue laughs a little.

Laura shrugs. "I saw it in a movie. Betsy was watching it with Jean and they invited me to watch with them." She wrinkles her nose. "I didn't like it all that much. It was boring. But there was a part where the man and woman had dinner on a rooftop."

"_Kate and Leopold_?" Kitty guesses. Laura frowns.

"Does that one have the man from the monster movie in it? The one with the hat?"

"Uhh, yeah?" Kitty laughs. Laura's face clears.

"Then yes, that's it."

"I like it," Nick says, snapping out of his daze for a moment and sincerely considering the idea. "I mean, Mum loves romantic dinners. She likes the whole candles and mood music thing. This will be perfect."

"Alright then," Remy nods determinedly, outlining a plan on the whiteboard. "Now," he spins back to point his marker at all of them. "Which one of you can cook?"

* * *

**A/N: And then, all of a sudden, Romy. Sorry? (Haha, not really.)**

**Why no Wanda or John? Because they tend to take over any scene they end up in, and that was really not the point of this chapter.**

**BAMF!, by the way, is the sound Kurt makes when he teleports, and you all can stop giggling any time now. **

**Kinda going with Alan Cummings, if anyone was wondering, when it comes to Kurt's future height. He's a taller version of Nightcrawler, and I kind of wanted him to grow into himself. Like, a lot.**

_**Gosse**_**, for anyone wondering, means "kiddo" or "kid" with a male-ish and affectionate connotation, according to Google translate. If there are any actually French-speakers out there who are just shaking their heads and laughing at me… I'm not offended.**

**Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Batman Begins. **_**Or **_**50 First Dates**_**. Or **_**Kate and Leopold**_**. Or **_**Van Helsing, **_**which is not mentioned by name but is alluded to. And yes, that is a Mythology Gag, for all you who were wondering about Laura watching **_**Kate and Leopold**_**. If you don't know who the male lead is, look it up. You'll get it.**

**I've got a Tumblr now: indigo-night-wisp dot tumblr dot com. Come say hi?**


	3. Part III

**Disclaimer: "Why is the rum always gone?" –Captain Jack Sparrow**

**A/N: This chapter is much shorter than the last one because we are switching gears somewhat. I apologize in advance for whiplash.**

**Also, I just realized last chapter that I'd completely forgotten the existence of Roberto when I was writing in stuff for the New Mutants and now I feel awful about it. Please excuse his absence, and enjoy a special mention of him next chapter.**

* * *

**Part III: The One Where the Kid is Missing, Might not Exist, and in Any Case, Is Most Certainly, Definitely **_**not**_** Named After Nick Fury**

* * *

Twenty years in the future, Betsy Braddock is having a decidedly odd day.

It starts at three in the morning, ironically, with a phone call from S.H.I.E.L.D. saying that her son has been sucked into the past via Stargate (or at least that's how Betsy is interpreting the somewhat frantic sputtering coming from the scientist she can hear screeching in the background of Nick Fury's call) and just gets weirder from there.

"Would you like to repeat that, Director Fury?" she says calmly, calm even though there is a part of her that really just wants to shriek and flail because her son, her _child_, has been transported through _time_. No matter that Nicholas is 19 years old and highly trained in no less than twelve different types of combat, he is still her only child, still her baby boy, and the news that he has essentially been kidnapped by a science-fiction cliché is extremely upsetting.

"I said," Nick Fury repeats, in a tone of voice that suggests that he knows that she definitely heard him the first time, "that your son is now in the past."

Betsy takes a deep breath and determines not to scream. Or snarl. Or telepathically snap Fury's neck through the phone line.

It's possible that her husband's homicidal tendencies are rubbing off on her.

"Wade and I will be there in ten minutes," she says instead, and then hangs up.

"Wade," she elbows him in the side. Sometimes, Wade sleeps so lightly that he wakes up if a fly buzzes. Other times, he sleeps like a dead man. Actually, he sleeps more soundly than some of the "dead" men that Betsy has met over the years.

"_Wade_," she shakes him again and this time he awakens.

"Huh? What is it?" he says, half-asleep.

"Something's happened to Nicholas."

He's awake instantly, sliding out of bed and into a pair of jeans, lacing up boots and belting his guns around his waist as he says, "What's wrong?"

Wade is homicidal. He's unpredictable. He's obsessive, tactless, temperamental, and he talks to people who aren't there. Before he met Betsy, his longest relationship had been with his obsession with the actress Bea Arthur. Simply put, Wade is crazy.

But he loves his family with every breath in his body (and a few more after that) and the suggestion that someone might have done something to hurt his son sharpens his usual insanity into blazing eyes and bared teeth.

"Fury said that Nick disturbed a top secret experiment and ended up being sent back in time," Betsy informs him shortly, throwing on jeans and a t-shirt that probably belongs to Wade.

He curses as he straps his katana sheaths over his shoulders. "That brat," he growls. The word holds none of the affection it usually does. Wade is worried, which, naturally, is expressed as anger. "I'm going to kill him."

Betsy gives him an unimpressed look as they swing out of their bedroom window and take to the rooftops. Wade rolls his eyes. Neither of them have bothered with their normal suits, too urgently intent on getting to S.H.I.E.L.D. as fast as possible. Wade feels sort of naked without his mask.

"Fine. But I'm definitely grounding him. You wait. I'm not gonna let that boy out of my sight for the next two years at least!"

Now it's Betsy's turn to roll her eyes. Wade doesn't even have the attention span to ground Nick for two days, much less two years. There's a reason why Betsy has to be the strict parent.

It had surprised a lot of people when Wade turned out to take to fatherhood like the proverbial duck takes to water. He was completely enamored with his son in a way Wade had never been before, even with Betsy. Nick was quite obviously his father's boy, though he took after Betsy in personality (notably, the lack of insane rambles about chimichangas and _The Golden Girls_) and temperament. The two of them spar incessantly; their version of father-son bonding time is to go out and kick the crap out of all the muggers in the city.

Betsy loves her boys to death, but quite honestly, she just doesn't understand them sometimes.

000

They reach S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in nine minutes and twenty-three seconds, a personal best for them. Why do they have a personal best for the distance between their home and S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Suffice to say, this is not the first time they have been called out of bed in the middle of the night because of something Nicholas has done at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

("Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," Nick Fury had begun, only to be cut off by Betsy and Wade interrupting at the same time.

"Braddock-Wilson."

"What?" he'd said, confused.

"It's Braddock-Wilson," Betsy had clarified. "Both names."

"With a hyphen," Wade had added helpfully.

Rolling his eyes, Fury had continued. "Sorry. Elizabeth and Wade, then," he paused to make sure they weren't going to object, then went on when they didn't, "your son has been making a nuisance of himself this evening. He broke into S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and spent an hour shadowing two of our agents before they caught him."

"A whole hour?" Wade asked, delightedly. "Did you hear that, honey bunny?" he said to Betsy, "Nick made it a whole hour without being seen! That's my boy!"

"You are missing the point," Fury said slowly.

"We'll come and get him," Betsy said, sighing and hanging up.)

"Betsy. Wade," Nick Fury greets perfunctorily as they stalk into the S.H.I.E.L.D. building. There's a security guard sitting on the lobby counter with an ice pack pressed against his neck and a nervous looking scientist with a long ponytail biting her fingernails. "The portal is in the basement."

"Let's go then," Betsy says, moving towards the elevator. Fury shakes his head.

"We've shut it down," he says.

"What?" Betsy exclaims. "You've shut it down? While Nicholas is still in the past?"

Fury sighs. "We had to. We couldn't risk any more people being sucked in."

"So you're just planning on leaving him there…" she trails off suddenly, looking confused.

"What?" Fury says.

"What?" Wade echoes.

"I don't know," Betsy says slowly. "One minute I was talking about… something, and the next, I couldn't… remember…" she frowns. "What are we doing here?"

"Your son?" Nick Fury asks, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant.

"What?" Wade says confusedly. "What son? We don't have a –"

"Yes! Yes we do!" Betsy practically shrieks. "We do have a son. His name is Nicholas and he's nineteen years old and his hair is blond like yours and he's a mutant with a healing factor like yours but he's also a telepath like me and, and, and…" her eyes are wide and frantic as she tries to recall more about her son.

"I remember now," Wade says, sounding dazed, and now Betsy is scared, because Wade is never confused about shifting worlds or alternate universes or any other strange concoction of magic, science, and genetics that chooses to appear out of thin air in their lives.

"Remember what?" Betsy blinks and then shakes her head violently. "Nicholas!" she says desperately, "our son." She squeezes her eyes shut and forces herself to concentrate, hard, on the image of a little boy with his father's blond hair, falling down and scraping his knees bloody on the pavement, only to bounce right back up almost instantly, instinctive tears drying faster than the blood that has stopped flowing from the places where there had been wounds not three seconds ago.

Nick, laughing, scowling, sniffling, pouting, snarling, smiling. Her baby boy. Her teenager. Her young man. Her son.

"Wade?" she says hesitantly, and then Wade's arms are around her as he reassures her.

"Yeah, yeah, baby, I remember. Our kid. Our little brat," and this time the term is affection personified. Wade grins a little bit then and nudges her with his nose. "How could we forget him? We named him after Nick Fury. That's pretty hard to forget."

Nick Fury scowls suddenly, all traces of hesitance erased immediately. "You did not."

"Did," Wade shoots back childishly.

"You did not name your kid after me."

"How do you know?" Betsy counters, distracted from her terror and feeling her heart rate return to normal as she realized that her memories of Nicholas weren't about to fade from her mind this time. "Maybe we did. You spent all that time with him when he was a baby, we just thought it would be nice for him to be your namesake."

Choosing to ignore this ramble, Fury rolls his eyes and gestures for them to follow him. "Whatever. Can we get back to finding your kid now?"

"By all means," Betsy returns smoothly, turning a smile like a hungry crocodile on him. "Do explain how your science-fiction machine kidnapped my son and sent him back in time?" She cocked a hip and stared at him, raising one eyebrow in challenge.

Fury glared back. "It ain't my fault that your brat doesn't know how to mind his own business," he snaps. "Maybe you should keep a closer eye on him. Or, here's an idea, keep him from roaming around by himself at night!"

Wade shrugged. "Ours is a free-spirit parenting method," he explains unnecessarily. "We don't believe in keeping him cooped up."

(A yellow box appears over Wade's head at this point, but this is incredibly un-obvious to everyone else, and anyway, the box doesn't appear to have anything to say other than one exasperated TCH! so it doesn't really matter all that much.)

"Well your 'free-spirit' method has cost S.H.I.E.L.D. thousands of dollars and a heckuva lot of time, so forgive me if I think it's less than effective!"

"Boys!" Betsy interrupts when it starts looking like Wade and Nick are about to come to blows. "Can we save the posturing for later? I, for one, would like to get my son back in the next decade."

"Two decades, actually," a nervously giggly voice pipes up. They turn to find that the voice is attached to the young scientist, who smiles weakly at them and waves a little. "Hello, erm. I… I was the one on duty when Weapon XI came in this evening."

If Betsy and Wade are surprised by the use of their son's self-proclaimed codename, neither of them show it. "What happened?" Betsy asks, leaning forward into the young woman's space.

"Um," she stutters, "he… he came in, wanted to know what I was working on… he called it a Stargate and… he just reached out and touched it before I could stop him." She looks intensely apologetic. "I'm so sorry!" she wails. "I didn't even realize that he was… I mean, he looked so young and… and…"

"Harmless?" Wade finishes dryly, exchanging a fondly exasperated look with Betsy. "Yeah, he does that sometimes."

"It really wasn't your fault," Betsy assures the scientist with a friendly smile. "Nicholas has a tendency to get himself into trouble, usually because he doesn't think about what he's doing until he's already done it and it's too late to back out. And trust me," she places a hand on the young woman's shoulder in a companionable manner, "if Nick wanted to get by you and touch something he shouldn't have, there really was nothing you could have done. You couldn't have stopped him."

The scientist smiles bravely at her and nods. "Well, anyway, as far as I know, Nick –" she pauses here to make sure that it's okay for her to use his real name before continuing at Betsy's encouraging nod, "Nick is twenty years in the past. That was how far back we had theoretically set the portal to travel." Now she looks excited, though it's an apologetic excitement, as if she is sorry for being so enthusiastic about her science when Betsy and Wade's son was the guinea pig. "We didn't actually know if it would work," she mumbles.

"Well, that's something then," Wade says cheerfully, drawing one katana and nonchalantly admiring his scarred expression in its reflective surface. "You've found out that it works! But in the meantime," and here is eyes harden and he turns a completely serious glare on Nick Fury, "my kid is missing. So," he points the katana at Fury, who, to his credit, continues to look as unimpressed as he did a moment ago, "what I want to know is: what are you going to do about that?"

"We have to reverse the portal," Fury says calmly. "That takes time. And then we have to get some kind of lock on Nicholas in the past in order to make sure he's the one we bring back. That takes more time. So what we're going to do," he points his finger at Wade, "is sit tight, wait, and not kill anybody. Got it?"

For all that Wade is practically immortal and could probably kill Nick in no less than fourteen different ways right now based on their relative distance from each other and the weapons Wade has at his disposal, Fury seems perfectly at ease. (Wade won't kill him anyway, but he definitely thinks about it.) There's just something about Nick Fury that is unflappable. You cannot startle him. You cannot unnerve him. Wade respects him almost against his will, because there's just something about Nick Fury that doesn't allow for disrespect. Even when Wade is mouthing off, he's doing so with the knowledge that when Fury finally gets fed up with listening to the Merc with a Mouth run said mouth, he will cut Wade off with a single word and Wade will obey.

It helps that Fury, despite his protests to the contrary, is extremely loyal to those who he works with, and Wade has been one of those people often enough to be certain that this loyalty extends to him as well. Besides, Fury can deny it all he wants, but it won't change the fact that Betsy and Wade named their son after him and that Nicholas secretly calls Fury "Big Nick" and has ever since he was a baby.

"Got it," he agrees finally, locking eyes with Fury and conveying his message neatly: _bring him home._

_I'm working on it_, Fury's eyes said back.

000

Meanwhile, twenty years in the past, Betsy Braddock is discovering the joys of making up with your boyfriend by way of making out. Constantly. Everywhere.

And, unaware of this development, Nicholas Braddock-Wilson is discovering all the reasons not to let his aunts and uncles cook dinner all at the same time. These reasons include, in no particular order: Cajun spices, sauerkraut, homemade gravy, five adults in one kitchen, Kurt's tail, two small grease fires, and Kitty trying to cook anything at all.

* * *

**A/N: Is anyone interested in seeing story notes for this story? I can publish them on Tumblr or something. I think they're kind of funny, and some people might like to read them?**

**Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Stargate**_** (again). **


	4. Part IV

**Disclaimer: "I love those moments! I like to wave at them as they pass by." –Captain Jack Sparrow**

**A/N: Sorry for the late update! Saturday was very busy for me, so I didn't have a chance to upload the next chapter, and then I forgot that I hadn't! **

* * *

**Part III: The One with More Rom-Com Shenanigans, the Short-Lived Ninja Invasion, and the (Brief) Return of the Stargate.**

* * *

The romantic dinner is a disaster. Thankfully, they realize this before they actually try to pull it off.

("This," Nick announced, "is a disaster."

"Yes," Laura said.

"I can't believe these people are my role models."

"Neither can I," Laura agreed cheerfully.)

Half of the food is burnt because the cooks were too busy arguing to pay attention to it, and the other half is deemed not fancy enough for a romantic dinner.

("I _told _you Kurt: you can't have hamburgers at a romantic dinner. Hamburgers _aren't _romantic!"

"Keety, this is _Wade. _He thinks _chimichangas _are romantic."

"NO CHIMICHANGAS!" The cry was unanimous.)

Nick finally puts a stop to the bickering by standing on the countertop and yelling at the top of his lungs.

"Hey," he says, pleasantly surprised, "that still works."

Nick had a very practical way of getting attention when he was a child. Scream Until They Notice You hasn't failed him yet.

"We'll have to try something else," he says more calmly. "Clearly a romantic dinner is out. What else is there?"

The X-Men look at each other and Nick immediately regrets everything.

000

Thus begins Stage 2 of Operation Wetsy –a name that Nick still abhors but doesn't bother arguing about. Romantic movie clichés fill the air. They're getting extreme –no trope is too outrageous.

The serenade is a bust, because Betsy and Wade don't even live in the same building, and anyway, Rogue points out, shouldn't Wade be doing this himself?

They try leaving romantic gifts and notes, but Betsy starts testing the chocolates for poison and examines the notes for fingerprints. Nick rolls his eyes and smacks his forehead.

"Of course Mum would be too paranoid for anonymous chocolates," he mutters. He blinks. "I can't believe 'anonymous chocolates' is a real thing that I actually said."

"Don't feel bad," Kurt commiserates. "I found myself arguing with Kitty over whether or not to get the 'pink' or the 'rose' roses earlier."

000

Locking Betsy and Wade in a closet together is an admittedly desperate move, and it works about as well as expected.

"Did no one remember that both Betsy and Wade are claustrophobic?"

"Unbelievable."

000

They try surprising a confession of love out of Wade by luring him and Betsy to the mall and setting up the perfect Love Confession Movie Scene. Wade is unhelpfully confused about why Kurt and Remy keep asking him about his relationship with Betsy.

"What? Betsy? We're fine."

"Really?" Remy asks skeptically.

"Really," Wade says.

Nick, hiding in the crowd above the food court, snarls.

_He's certainly not torn up about this_, his inner voice observes calmly.

_He is!_ Nick retorts frantically. _He is, he's just… hiding it._

_He hides it really well_, the inner voice comments, sounding unfairly reasonable, and unnervingly like Jean Grey.

Betsy, on the other hand, is less confused and more annoyed.

"Why all the questions about Wade?" she demands. "Why don't we talk about Remy instead? Huh?"

Rogue goes bright red and stops asking about Wade.

000

Roberto, who arrives at the Institute just in time to interrupt the Closet Incident, comes up with a complex plan involving himself, Bobby, Ray, and Sam, as well as four different kinds of flour, a hammer, two bags of concrete, and an online recipe for fake blood. The plan spans across three poster boards, and is illustrated by string and macaroni noodles glued to the cardboard.

Remy actually cringes at the sight of it. Rogue kindly tells Roberto that perhaps his plan could be used in another way, later.

Like, to apprehend the Brotherhood next time they start acting up.

(Since that was what Roberto had thought they were trying to do anyway (no one had actually explained the situation to him properly), he is fine with that.)

000

They all agree not to talk about the attempted reenactment of the Ferris Wheel Scene from _The Notebook_.

000

Rogue has the bright idea to recruit Storm to create a rain storm and shove the two wayward lovers out into it. Presumably, they will then proceed to make out and fall in love with each other all over again. Remy beams at her brilliance. Storm is less than impressed.

"Do you really think that will work?" she asks skeptically.

"Yes," Kitty says eagerly. "It worked for Allie and Noah."

Storm still looks doubtful, but she makes the storm anyway. (Nick notes carefully that she does not have to ask who Allie and Noah are.)

At first, it seems like the thing with the rain is going to be the clincher, when Betsy is lured outside with minimal fuss and Wade is strategically positioned by Remy to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Remy is cautiously optimistic that this time, everything will work out perfectly.

It doesn't.

As it turns out, Betsy doesn't find being soaked to the skin, with her hair dripping into her eyes to be all that romantic. Wade doesn't really care, but he's definitely not about to rush over and start smooching her, either.

Their conversation, when they meet outside of Betsy's modeling office, goes like this:

"Betsy."

"Wade."

It's a short conversation.

Well, the part of it that their eavesdropping friends can overhear is short. The rest of it takes place telepathically, both of them too chilled to bother speaking aloud.

Their mental conversation goes something like this:

_Hi, honey bunny. I've missed you._

_Mm. Don't call me that. I've missed you, too. Any idea why our friends have contrived to force us outside in a downpour?_

_Uh, probably the same reason they locked us in a closet last night at the Institute._

Disgruntlement.

_Because they're idiots?_

_Yeah, basically._

Amusement.

_You wanna just ditch work? We can go back to my place and cuddle and watch movies._

_No ninjas?_

_Does Jackie Chan count?_

Pause.

_Okay,_ fictional _ninja, only._

(At this point, the equivalent of a mental kiss is exchanged, which is exactly as weird as it sounds, and, truly, defies the imagination somewhat for those who are not telepaths.)

_I'm glad you decided you don't hate me._

_Oh, Wade, I could never._

_Never?_

_Well, I mean I almost could never._

_Better._

_Because, I mean, I guess you could do something terrible, if you wanted to. Like, you could main me permanently. I don't know why you would, and I really do know that you really wouldn't, but if you did, I'd probably hate you._

_That's the spirit. Unconditional love and forgiveness should not extend to purposeful maiming._

_But I forgive you for ruined dates and ninja attacks and S.H.I.E.L.D. sending you away to Argentina for weeks on end and Golden Girls marathons at one in the morning and chimichangas at midnight and anything else you do that irritates me sometimes. _

_Because you love me?_

_Because I love you._

He stares at her with an expression that, on anyone else, could be described as "sappy." On Wade it just looks really intense and is not unlike the expression he usually wears when he's about to violently murder someone. Of course, violence tends to make Wade unusually affectionate and occasionally amorous, so the two are probably close enough to the same thing for it not to make a difference.

_You're sexy when you're talking in my mind._

_Please, I'm sexy all the time._

_Mm._

_Mm._

(Another telepathic kiss.)

They hail a cab and their watching friends scramble to catch up, trip over each other, and lose them in the streets of Bayville.

Nick wonders how it is that they haven't all managed to accidentally kill themselves yet.

000

He's more dejected than he'd like to admit to when he and his aunts and uncles straggle back to the Institute and collapse on the sofas in the rec room, dripping rain everywhere and cringing beneath Storm's disapproving gaze. Nick is so out of sorts that he can't even muster the energy to mentally complain about Jubilee, Tabby, and Amara sitting there being the Hot Aunts Trio.

_Wow, too tired to whine?_ his inner voice sniped. _You must be on your last legs._

_Oh, shut up,_ he thinks at it wearily.

"Don't give up, Nick," Kitty says comfortingly from her position sprawled out across the loveseat. "We'll think of something."

He tries to smile, but can't quite manage it, too busy feeling his chest tighten in a way he hasn't really felt in years.

_Great_, he sighs. _I'm having an emotion._

He's kidding, because of course he has emotions, but this is one of the unpleasant variety, and he can't even identify it for a moment, it's so foreign to him. And then it hits and he mentally recoils.

Fear. He's afraid. Nicholas Braddock-Wilson is afraid of what will happen if his parents never get back together. If he's ruined all of their futures and their lives forever.

Fear, Nick decides, is an awful feeling and he doesn't like it and he wants it to go away. Right now, please.

"I think I need to go to bed," he tells them. Kitty looks concerned, but Rogue is understanding and Kurt lays a gentle hand on his shoulder before volunteering to go ask Logan for any help the gruff man is willing to offer. Nick nods his thanks. Logan, or Uncle Jimmy, as Nick usually calls him, has been sort of a sore spot for him the past few days. Usually, when Nick has a problem, Uncle Jimmy will be right there to fix it, from enemies on Nick's tail to missing limbs that need to be held in place to heal properly. But this time, this problem, Logan can't just fix. In fact, he's pretty reluctant to get involved at all, and though Nick shies away from thinking touchy-feely thoughts about Logan, he can't help but feel sort of hurt by the standoffish behavior.

Nodding again, wearily, he takes to the stairs, easily finding his way to the bedroom they've been letting him use.

It isn't the same one he has in the future, though, and it takes him a long time to fall asleep.

000

It's the ninjas that wake him up. Nick would be laughing hysterically at the irony if he wasn't so busy trying not to die.

"_You_," the lead sock-head accuses, pointing an eskrima stick at Nick.

"Me?" Nick agrees, spreading his hands. He's a bit confused, but he hopes he can be forgiven for that, considering that he just woke up to find his supposedly secure bedroom crawling with ninja.

Nick is _seriously_ going to have to talk to the Professor about his security system.

"You didn't tell us we were going to be attacked by purple fairies," the man spits out.

Nick laughs before he can think better of it. "Fairies? Is _that _what you guys saw? Mum must've been watching _Peter Pan _again."

It's Betsy's favorite Disney movie, though she refuses to explain why.

"Never mind that!" the ninja hisses. "We demand appropriate compensation."

Nick stops laughing. "Appropriate compensation?" he repeats incredulously. "It was a job! You got paid! You're _ninja_. Doesn't this kind of thing come with the territory?"

"Purple. Fairies." The ninja grits out from between his teeth. Nick winces, because yeah, okay.

"Uh, sorry?" he offers weakly. The ninja growls and swings with eskrima sticks at Nick's head. He doesn't bother to duck, simply taking the blow that would have knocked anyone else unconscious and rolling with it over to his weapons, which are piled next to the dresser.

"Okay," he says, baring his teeth in the crocodile smile and brandishing his katana. "Let's go then."

They rush him, all at the same time, thirty ninja in a circle around a not-quite full grown young man, who, despite the odds, holds his own admirably.

Nick doesn't actually want to kill any of them, not only because that would be petty, but also because the carpet in his room is a weird sort of beige that is probably really hard to get blood stains out of and Nick hates cleaning. Unfortunately, his opponents do not share this mindset.

He takes a stab wound right to the center of his stomach and curses extravagantly as he staggers to his knees. The ninja on the other end of the blade looks sort of horrified. Or at least as horrified as someone wearing a black sock over his whole head can look. This is clearly the sort of ninja who does his ninja-ing on the weekends only.

Nick coughs up some blood and grins at him through red teeth. "'S alrigh'," he slurs. "No harm done." And then he reaches down and yanks the sword out of his gut, the flesh knitting itself together instantly. He's nice enough to return the weapon to its shocked owner before incapacitating the weekend ninja with a blow from his katana handle.

"One down," he announces grimly.

He takes down two more by slicing into their biceps. It won't kill or maim them permanently, but he makes sure to go deep enough that their arms will be useless for a while. A fourth, he kicks the legs out from under and quickly and efficiently breaks one of them. Mercifully, he adds another precise kick and the man is unconscious. Five, six, seven, and eight get knocked out by flying furniture before Nick's mostly untrained telekinetic abilities falter. Nine is, amusingly, taken down by one of his own, and ten manages to slice right through Nick's chest cavity before Nick throws him out of the window.

Nick stops counting after ten.

One by one, all thirty ninja go down. Some manage to do some damage before they succumb, but Nick has genetics on his side, and even losing a hand doesn't stop him for long. (It does make him mad though. That ninja receives a whole-hearted stab straight through the right shoulder for that one.) Several of the sock-heads, seeing their comrades fall, decide to sit down by the wall, place their weapons across their laps and, apparently, meditate.

By the time the X-Men arrive at the door to his room, pajama-clad and half-frantic with adrenaline in the middle of the night, Nick is seated cross-legged on his bed, impassively observing the ninjas trying to administer first-aid to their more seriously wounded companions. He is holding his severed right hand to his wrist with his left hand, as the bones re-grow and the skin and muscles and tissues fuse back into each other. He glances up at them when they burst in, prepared for battle and startled by stillness.

Nick looks at Laura, at the front of the pack, claws out and a fierce snarl twisting her lips. His own mouth quirks a little, as if to say _I see you there caring about my welfare._

What he actually says is, "I'm going to tease you about this _mercilessly _one day."

000

_Meanwhile, twenty years in the future…_

"We can bring him home now," Fury says casually, as if he's not delivering news that they've been anxiously awaiting for three days.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Betsy says instantly, then tries not to punch him in the face when he replies, "Your presence, madam."

Sometimes, Nick Fury can be a real git.

The Stargate is all fired up and ready to go. Betsy stares at a little blinking light on a screen that is supposedly her son and swallows hard.

"Okay," she breathes, squeezing Wade's hand tightly. The scientist taps a couple of keys and turns a knob.

The portal flares…

000

_Twenty years in the past…_

Getting rid of the ninjas is surprisingly easy. Dr. McCoy simply offers medical aid to any who need it and the lot of them gather each other up and troop down to the infirmary.

"There's no sorrier sight than a bunch of subdued ninjas," Nick says cheerfully, not sounding sorry at all. His hand is completely reattached and he rotates his wrist gently, relishing the way Bobby's wide eyes follow the motion.

With the excitement of the Short Lived Ninja Invasion over, Nick soon returns to his worry over his parents.

"What do you mean, they're coming to breakfast?" he yelps. Kitty does not look sympathetic.

"It's Saturday," she says, like this should explain everything. "Betsy and Wade always come over for breakfast on Saturdays."

Nick pauses. "Oh. Right," he mumbles, because _of course _they do. They _still _do that, in his own time. Saturday morning breakfast has been a part of Nick's life since before he was born.

"Just keep your head down," Kurt suggests helpfully. "Do not draw attention to yourself."

Nick certainly has no intention of doing _that_, so when Betsy and Wade do arrive, he makes sure that he is sitting on the same side of the table, with Remy and Piotr in between them.

Of course, that seating arrangement soon becomes confusing when the couple easily sit down right next to each other as though nothing has happened. As though they weren't in the middle of a tragic breakup. Everyone else glances at each other awkwardly, wondering if they should say something.

Finally, Rogue clears her throat.

"So, erm," she starts, "Betsy. You…"

Betsy looks at her politely, absently buttering a biscuit and handing it to Wade. Rogue's voice stutters to a halt.

"You and Wade seem… happy," Piotr steps in unexpectedly. Rogue shoots him a pathetically grateful look.

Wade stops eating and exchanges a bemused look with Betsy. "Uh, yeah?" he snorts. "Why wouldn't we?"

"Well, the break-up," Piotr continues, seeming not to notice the sharp intake of breath at his side or Remy banging his head on the table because of the lack of tact.

"Break-up?" Betsy sounds both confused and amused at the same time.

"You and Wade," Piotr clarifies calmly, and Nick feels his heart stop suddenly because just hearing it is horrifying.

But then…

"What?" Wade is snorting again. "We didn't break up!"

"Where on earth did you get that idea?" Betsy turns an astonished gaze upon all of them. Her eyes narrow the next second. "Oh my gosh, _that's _why you've all been acting so strangely all week! You thought we'd called it quits!"

"Well didn't you?" Nick bursts out before he can help it. "In the restaurant, you two called it off."

Used to finding strangers sharing the breakfast table at the Institute, Betsy doesn't bother to question the sudden appearance of the blond-haired teenager who was currently clenching his fists and glaring at her challengingly. If she'd been looking harder, she would notice that he looks an awful lot like the boy who had crashed her date with Wade a few nights ago, but she isn't. She misses the hint of desperation that softens and brightens into hope at her next words.

"Of course we didn't! I was mad, he was upset, and we just needed some time to cool down is all." She looks around at all of her friends and gives them all a reassuring smile. "I promise you all, Wade and I are just fine."

Wade reaches up and pulls her to him the two of them stumbling away from the table a little, kissing her soundly as if to say _See? We're good and I can prove it_.

Nick feels his knees go weak with relief and he sinks into his chair, for once glad of his parents' tendency to get so wrapped up in each other so quickly. Their PDA usually makes him want to shoot himself in the eyeballs, but right now he's just glad that they're too busy to properly pay attention to him, or to notice that he is the same person that landed on their restaurant table four nights ago.

Remy nudges him. "It worked!" he says cheerfully. Nick rolls his eyes, snapping out of his relieved stupor quickly.

"It didn't _need _to work, Swamp Rat," Rogue retorts. "They never broke up to start with."

"But because of us, they are now back together!" Remy beams.

"You mean, _in spite of us_, they are now back together."

"They were never _not _together," Kitty interrupts, "don't you two ever listen?"

"They are making me lose my appetite," Kurt announces, scowling pointedly at his plate. He had looked up two seconds ago and seen Betsy sucking on Wade's bottom lip. He is scarred for life, he is certain.

"This is what I live with," Nick reminds him, silently agreeing in disgust. Rogue is eyeing the couple freely. She looks like she is mentally taking notes. Remy is watching Rogue with that sappy look on his face. Kurt looks like he wants to throw up.

"Stop yanking on me," Nick says suddenly to Kitty, who is sitting on his other side.

"What? I'm not!"

"Something's pulling on me!"

"Shh!" Remy hisses, glancing over his shoulder at Betsy and Wade. "Come on." He ushers them away from the table and the dining room, the whole lot of them, with Nick in the middle.

"Now," he says, when they are all safely in the kitchen, "what is going on?"

"Something is yanking on me," Nick insists. He hunches his shoulders and Kurt grips them tightly.

"How? What?"

"I don't know! It feels like someone is holding onto me and _pulling_."

"Like, holding onto your arm or something?" Kitty asks. Nick shrugs and twitches.

"Yeah, except that it's more like around my waist. Like someone's trying to pick me up and haul me around."

Uncle Jimmy used to do that to Nick a lot when he was younger and smaller. One minute, Nick would be standing on his own two feet, and the next he'd be flying through the air, Uncle Jimmy's hands gripping his waist and tossing him high overhead. Nick would laugh and shriek and fling carefree telepathic giggles at everyone around.

(Okay, so Logan still does that to Nick sometimes. It's harder now that Nick is nearly nine inches taller than Logan, but the other man is still much stronger. Nick's dignity wouldn't permit such treatment, except that he really doesn't have a choice. When Logan decides that he's going to be playful with the kid he calls his nephew, then you either play along or get left behind.)

"Well, first things first," Rogue says, taking charge of the situation like the mature and responsible adult she is, "does it hurt? Because if it hurts, then we should probably do something about it immediately."

"It doesn't hurt," Nick sighs. "I don't… _hurt_, remember? It just… it feels weird. And also a bit like my insides are about to fall out."

"Why are your insides falling out?" Laura says from behind him and _Dark Lord of the X-Men_, he wishes she would stop _doing_ that.

"Dark Lord of the X-Men," he hisses, "I wish you would stop _doing_ that."

Laura shrugs, unrepentant.

"Why are your insides falling out?" she repeats.

"They're not," Kurt tells her. "He's just whining."

"Hey!" Nick says indignantly. "You try having some unseen force grab you around the middle and yank you around and see how you like it!"

"Kurt does that with his tail pretty much every single day," Kitty puts in. "I've learned to just roll with it."

"I do not!" Kurt sputters. "Not every day!"

They all look at each other.

"No, no, I'm pretty sure it's every day."

"It really is."

"You do grab her a lot."

"I have noticed this trend," Laura puts in.

"Guys!" Nick half-shouts, half-yelps, drawing their attention back to him with an almost audible snap. "Can we get back to _me_? Mysterious force trying to pull me off somewhere –ahhhh!"

"What –" Remy and Kurt start at the same time.

"How –" Rogue looks concerned.

"Are you –" Kitty reaches out to grasp Nick's hand tightly.

"I will kill it," Laura announces, unsheathing her claws, and this is when Nick starts laughing.

"I love you," he tells her, because that's innocent enough, right? He loves all of them, it could mean anything. He tells them all he loves them, just so that they know.

"I love you guys. You're all great uncles and aunts."

"Awwww," Kitty and Rogue both say. Rogue looks surprised at herself.

"_Gosse_," Remy starts, sounding worried. Nick waves him off.

"Sheesh, I'm not dying," he snarks. "I just… I just want you guys to know that, someday, you're gonna be really awesome at this."

"I think we are awesome at it right now," Laura says. Nick glances over at her and somehow manages not to crack up.

"Er. Yep. You… totally awesome. Uh-huh. Aunts and Uncles. Yep."

_Oh, _Stan Lee_, no, _his inner voice whispers in horror.

Another tug at his midsection, and then Nick gasps, because a glowing portal just opened up in the ceiling.

"Uh," says Kurt.

"What the heck is that?" Rogue stares.

"I think it's the Stargate," Nick suddenly realizes.

"The what?" Remy asks.

"The… time-travel, portal thingy. The thing that sent me here. I guess…" he brightens, "I guess Mum and Dad finally realized that I was gone and went to S.H.I.E.L.D. to get me back!"

"Then that means…" Kitty starts.

"Operation Wetsy worked!" they shout together.

Everyone stares at Nick. His face reddens.

"I mean –"

"Nope!" Kitty yells. "No taksies-backsies!" She points at him. "You said it, you said it and you can't take it back!" She does a little dance and wiggles her finger at Nick.

"Kitty!" Rogue yells. "Focus! Portal? Time travel? Remember?"

"Oh yeah," she sobers instantly and looks up at Nick with a mournful expression. "I guess you're going home now, right?"

He smiles down at her. "Guess so."

"Don't worry," Remy says cheerfully. "Did ya see Betsy and Wade in there? He'll be along shortly."

"Ew!" Nick, Kitty, and Kurt all recoil. Remy smirks and reaches out to ruffle Nick's hair.

"See ya, _gosse_," he says. "You'll be shorter than Kurt when next we meet."

"Bye, _Oncle _Remy," Nick replies. "I will be sure to tell future you that I now know all your dirty secrets."

Remy looks confused. "But… you don't."

Nick shrugs. "Yeah, but future you won't know that."

Remy grins. "I'm so proud of you. But what if I remember this conversation?"

Nick scowls. "Can't I win just once?" Remy laughs again and flicks him in the nose.

"Just once," he says. Rogue reaches out and grabs Nick in a spontaneous hug. She releases him almost immediately, looking extremely startled at her own daring. Nick smiles wide and pulls her back.

"Bye, _Tante_," he whispers in her ear. "My birthday is May 2nd. Use your knowledge wisely."

Kitty grabs his arm and spins him away from Rogue and into a fierce hug. "Ugh," she moans, "why can't you be born yet? I'm gonna miss you so much until you're here!"

Nick snorts, hugging her back. "Um, okay?" he says, looking over her shoulder at Kurt, who shrugs in response.

"I don't know, man, this whole conversation is freaking weird." When Kitty finally lets go, Kurt offers Nick a fist bump. "I guess we'll see you when we see you," he says. Nick smirks at him.

"Bye, Uncle Kurt," he says. "Bye, Aunt Kitty. Bye _Oncle _and _Tante_." He waves to all of them in turn, feeling sort of silly. He's a little bit sad to say goodbye, but mostly he feels profoundly relieved, because if he's being called home, that means there's someone on the other side _to _call him home. It means he exists in the future, and that his parents are still very much together (and probably furious, but Nick will take that over the alternative any day) and that he hasn't screwed too many things up by this little jaunt into the past. He's more than ready to go home.

Nick looks up towards the portal. "Okay," he mumbles to himself. "So how do I…"

"Hey," Kurt calls. "What about _Aunt Laura_?" He's giving Nick a very pointed look. Nick mentally promises to kick Kurt in the face when he's finally born.

"Goodbye, Nick," Laura says. She offers him a quirk to the corner of her mouth. For Laura, that's practically a beaming grin. He coughs.

"Goodbye, Laura," he says, ignoring the way everyone looks confused by the lack of a title. "I'll be seeing you."

"Yes," she says, ever practical. "You will."

"Okay then," he says, glancing up at the Stargate again. "Um. I'm ready? Action? Up, up and away? Oh, I know! Beam me up, Scot –"

And he's gone.

000

_Twenty years in the future…_

"You are in so much trouble."

"I know."

"I cannot believe you would do something so irresponsible."

"I know, Mum, I'm sorry."

"Your father and I were worried sick."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Your Uncle Nick was practically tearing his hair out."

Pause.

Snort.

"Wade that was terrible."

"No, no, look at his face, Betsy, _look at it_. It's perfect."

"Wade, apologize to Director Fury."

"Sorry, Big Nick."

"Don't. Call. Me. That."

Beat.

"I'm glad you're home, kid."

"Thanks, sir."

"You ready to go home, kiddo?"

"Yeah, Dad. Um. Mum, do you know if Laura's back from her mission yet?"

"I think she is. Why?"

"No reason. I was just… wondering."

* * *

**A/N: I hope you all appreciate my terrible humor. **

**One more chapter to go, folks.**

**Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Notebook. **_**I also don't own **_**Disney's Peter Pan. **_**As usual, I also don't own **_**Stargate**_**.**


	5. Part V

**Disclaimer: "I've got a jar of dirt, I've got a jar of dirt. And guess what's inside it!" –Captain Jack Sparrow**

**A/N: At last we come to the end! Dark Lord, you deserve accolades, accolades I tell you, for your patience in dealing with me and my tardiness. You've had to wait far too long for this story. I hope it was worth the wait.**

**Nick's birthday, in case anyone wonders, was chosen because I finished this story on May 2****nd****.**

* * *

**Part V: The One with the Baby**

* * *

_May 2, 2007_

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

"What? What is it? Betsy? Betsy, for the love of Lee, stop screaming and tell me what's wrong!"

"The baby's coming!"

"Is that _all_?"

"Wade Braddock-Wilson, if you don't get me to the hospital _right now_ –"

"Okay, okay, we're going, come on, lemme get you out of bed…"

000

Betsy and Wade Braddock-Wilson become the proud parents of Nicholas J. Braddock-Wilson at three o'clock in the morning on May 2, 2007. When asked what the "J" stands for, they reply that they don't know.

("We just thought it sounded cool," Wade shrugged. Ororo Munroe looked skeptically at Betsy.

"It's true," the new mother agreed with her husband. "And this way, he can have some choice in what his name is. One day, he can decide for himself what the 'J' stands for."

"We believe in a free-spirit parenting method," Wade added.)

Nick Fury arrives in a flurry of paperwork and gruff, one-eyed, well, fury, only to stop short when faced with the squalling infant nestled in Betsy's arms like a red-faced, fuzzy-headed king.

"That's the baby?" he says incredulously. Betsy looks amused.

"What did you expect?" she asks. "Tentacles?"

"_No_," Fury retorts, surreptitiously putting a check in the _NO _box for the "tentacles" space on his paperwork. "But he… he looks so normal," he finishes, somewhat lamely. For Nick Fury.

"Wanna hold him?" Betsy says mischievously. Jean Grey looks somewhat scandalized. Betsy hasn't even let _her _hold little Nicholas yet, and now she's offering him to _Fury_?

"Uhhh," Nick says, only to cut off sharply when Wade transfers the little bundle of screeching into his leather-clad arms. The crying stops almost immediately, all of the baby's attention suddenly consumed by the new person holding him. The kid gurgles. Fury sputters.

"His name is Nicholas," Wade says proudly. Fury's head shoots up and he glares.

"What? It is not!"

Wade glares back. "Is too! He's our baby, and we can name him whatever we want!"

"But –"

"Eeeeeek! They're in here, everyone!"

And then the rest of the X-Men descend on the little family.

"Oh my goodness, look at you!" Kitty squeals, bounding over and smiling down at the infant in Nick Fury's arms. "Oh, look at your tiny little hands! You are so precious! Look, Kurt, look, it's little Nick!"

"Whoa!" Betsy looks startled. "Did I tell you guys what we decided to name him?"

"Uhhh…" Kitty and Kurt both look up at each other, guiltily.

"Yeah, sugah, don't you remember?" Rogue saves them smoothly. "You told us last week."

"Oh," Betsy says, scrunching her forehead up in thought. "Guess I forgot that."

"Pregnancy can do that to you," Kitty says earnestly, tearing her attention away from baby Nicholas with obvious effort. "It makes you cranky and forgetful. I read it online."

"I don't think –" Betsy starts, only to be cut off by Remy, who comes bouncing through the door like he's freaking Tigger or something.

"He's here, he's here, he's finally here!" Remy _sings _out, grinning from ear to ear and leaning over to plant a friendly kiss smack on the lips of the brand new mother. "Congratulations to _la petit maman_, and to you, _mon ami_, though you'll forgive Remy if he don't kiss you," he says to Wade, who fakes a mournful frown at the irrepressible young man.

"Can I hold him?" Kitty asks eagerly. Betsy laughs.

"Wait a minute! There's a queue. Poor Jean has had to wait for a while now. She's next. Nick, can you give him to Jean?"

Nick Fury gratefully hands the baby to Jean, who immediately starts cooing over him. Scott looks on with an air of pleased standoffishness. He's glad there's a baby, but that doesn't mean he wants to cuddle it just yet.

"You're all very excited about this," Betsy says to the four X-Men currently vibrating in place.

"What? No we're not," Rogue denies instantly, holding her hands behind her back as if that will hide how very excited she is.

"Uh-huh," Betsy says, unconvinced.

"Hiya, Jimmy!" Wade cheers suddenly, as Logan appears in the doorway, looking even more uncomfortable than Nick Fury. "Come on in and hold the baby!"

Jean pouts a little, but doesn't argue. Logan, surprisingly, doesn't even bother trying to say no. He just reaches out and gathers little Nicholas into his arms, peering down at the tiny face that scrunches itself up tightly against the light.

"Hey, kiddo," he says softly. "I'm your Uncle Jimmy."

Everyone will later pretend that they didn't hear him say that, and Wade will loudly declare to anyone and everyone that _he _is the one to tell Nicholas that Logan's name is 'Uncle Jimmy.' Logan appreciates this, because he really doesn't know what came over him.

"I want to hold him!" Rogue whispers to Remy in an agonized voice. He wraps an arm around her shoulders comfortingly.

"Soon, _chere_," he says. "Soon."

000

It is two days before anyone else gets to hold the baby. Betsy and Wade bring him by the Institute and teasingly pretend to speculate over whom to hand him to. Surprisingly, it is Bobby who makes the decision.

"Oh, will you just give him to Kitty already?" he growls. "She's been driving me crazy all week."

Betsy laughs and carefully passes Nicholas into Kitty's arms. Kitty sighs happily and beams down at the solemn-faced child.

"Hi, there, Nick," she says softly. "We're going to have so much fun together." She peeks up at her friends from under her eyelashes and adds, slyly, "I can't wait to teach you all about rom-coms."

Everyone starts laughing, except for Betsy and Wade, who just can't figure out what is so funny about their baby.

000

Kurt gets the first smile. It's _sans _teeth, but it's no less fierce for the lack. Kurt gloats for days.

000

Wade is there to see Nicholas' first steps, and subsequently, his first fall, which results in a bloody lip that scabs and heals almost instantly. Wade and Nicholas agree not to tell Betsy about that. Well. Wade agrees. Nick just sort of bobs his head and smirks.

000

Logan likes to pick up the baby and swing him around. He never smiles when he does it, which makes for an odd picture: the short, scowling man playing with the giggling baby.

The Professor holds Nicholas on his lap and stares deep into his eyes, nodding occasionally with a very serious expression on his face. At first, Betsy worriedly asks him if there's something wrong with Nicholas. Xavier simply replies, "No, not at all."

"Then why do you look at him so seriously all the time?" she asks.

The Professor smiles kindly at the worried mother. "My dear," he says, "it's only polite to give one's full attention to the person with whom one is having a conversation."

And that is how they discover that Nicholas is a telepath.

000

When Nick is two years old, Remy teaches him to pick pockets. Betsy is not amused.

"Remy!" she scolds. "He doesn't need to learn stuff like that!"

Remy just shrugs complacently. "Maybe. Maybe not. But now he's got a trick to impress the ladies with," he grins.

Betsy pretends to smack him, but she's laughing.

000

Betsy teaches Nick how to fling his toys at Daddy when he comes in at all hours of the night. Nick is very pleased with himself. Wade teaches Nick how to climb out of his crib in revenge. Betsy makes Wade sleep on the couch for three nights.

000

After the year of testing at S.H.I.E.L.D., when Nick is two years old, Betsy drops him off at the Institute for the night, leaving him in Remy's arms with a wink and a telepathic hint of the night she has planned for herself and Wade. Remy retreats into the rec room with a shudder.

"Too much information, _femme_," he growls. Rogue looks up from her book and gasps in delight.

"For the night?" she says, staring happily up at her little "nephew."

"Yeah," Remy says, setting Nicholas down on the floor to wander as he pleases. "His parents are going to be… busy." Rogue glances up and catches the look on his face.

"Ew," she says. Remy agrees, joining her on the couch. "But that means we get to watch him!" she concludes cheerfully.

Nick takes that opportunity to grasp the corner of a shelf and bring the whole thing crashing down on himself. Gasping, Rogue jumps up and runs over to him, reaching under the pile of books and movies and pulling out the sobbing two year old.

"Ow!" he says tearfully. "Ow, Roguey!"

"Oh," she coos at him. "Where does it hurt?"

"Head," he pouts, pointing. Knowing Nick, it probably doesn't hurt all that much, and certainly didn't do any real damage (thank God for that regeneration mutation; it makes child-proofing so much easier), but he's still upset and a bit shocked. "Kiss it better," he demands suddenly.

"Oh, no, baby, I can't –" she tries, because she's been working on the whole control thing, but it only works the way she wants it to about half of the time, only to cut off in surprise when the insistent toddler bumps his head forward gently and presses against her lips.

Nothing happens.

She breathes a sigh of relief and hears a giggle. Carefully pulling her mouth away from his forehead, Rogue smiles down at Nick and says, "Don't do that again, sugah. I could've knocked ya out."

He giggles even more and says, "Knock out, knock out! Knock m'out, Roguey!"

"You can knock Remy out anytime ya want, _chere_," Remy murmurs. She spins around to face him. He leans back on the couch and smirks at her. "Anytime," he promises. She blushes fiercely.

000

Laura's first encounter with Nicholas doesn't happen until he is seven years old. She returns to the Institute and is immediately accosted by a wild-eyed child wielding a pair of katana.

"Who goes there?" he yells hysterically. She frowns at him.

"My name is Laura," she says. He pauses.

"You're supposed to say, 'Friend,'" he says.

"Oh," she says back, thinking hard. "But you did not ask 'friend or foe.' You only asked 'who goes there?'"

Shocked at this lack of planning in his own challenge, he lets her pass. She smirks at him a little bit as she goes by.

"It's nice to meet you, Nicholas," she calls over her shoulder as she goes. Nick stares after her.

_Did you tell her my name? _he asks his inner voice.

_Do you listen to yourself think? _his inner voice replies long-sufferingly, which doesn't really answer the question, but also sort of does.

000

Wade teaches Nick to shoot. Betsy teaches Nick to read minds. Logan teaches him two kinds of hand-to-hand combat, and Rogue teaches him another five, including how to fight dirty, which he uses gleefully against Logan every chance he gets. Kurt teaches him gymnastics. Remy teaches him how to curse in French, and when Betsy finds out and puts a stop to it, he tries teaching him how to flirt instead. This doesn't work as well.

("Can't we just fight and then make-out?" he asked when he was eleven. Remy sighed.

"_Non, gosse_. It don't work like that."

Nick shrugged. "Works for Mum and Dad," he said, and then Remy was done with the conversation.)

The other X-Men contribute to Nick's education by collectively compiling a list of "Things Nick Should Not Do" and sitting back to watch gleefully while he attempts every single one of them.

The last item on the list is "Travel Back in Time."

Bobby thinks he's _so _funny.

000

When Nick is thirteen, his Aunt Kitty suddenly runs through the wall of the kitchen yelling at the top of her lungs.

"_Guys_," she says, "I can't _believe _we didn't think of this before!"

"What?" _Tante _Rogue looks up from her Very Serious Popcorn Popping and frowns. Tonight is Movie Night (also known as Date Night for Wade and Betsy), and so Nick is spending the night and staying up as late as he wants and for that, they must have popcorn, hence the Very Serious Popping of Popcorn.

"I know what we're watching tonight," Aunt Kitty sings out.

"What?!" Kurt asks impatiently.

"Yes, what?" Betsy asks suspiciously from the doorway. Wade peers around her and winks at his son, who grins back.

"_Back to the Future_!" Kitty declares triumphantly. Everyone freezes for a moment. Betsy's forehead furrows as she tries to decipher just what the corrupting influence Marty McFly will be upon her son. She can't imagine what it could be, but she can definitely tell that anything her friends are this excited about showing to her son will probably be corrupting in some way. Wade just shrugs, already bored with the conversation, and moves toward the door. Remy, Rogue, and Kurt just stare at Kitty in stunned silence.

"Dark Lord of the X-Men," Kurt whispers. "It's brilliant."

"I _know _right?" Kitty squeals.

"How did we not see it before?"

"I _know_."

"This is going to be hilarious," Rogue grins, taking the Very Serious Popcorn off the stove with a flourish.

"Okay?" Nick says, glancing from aunt to aunt to uncle to uncle. "Yay for time travel?"

Betsy and Wade _seriously _can't figure out what the heck is so flipping funny about their kid.

* * *

**A/N: And, at last, with the final chapter, we come to the premise for the joke in the title of our fic. Did anyone guess it before now, or did you all even realize that there **_**was **_**a joke?**

**Additional, No-Longer-A-Spoiler Disclaimer: I do not own Tigger. Also, I do not own **_**Back to the Future**_**.**

**Well, everyone, I've had an enormous amount of fun. If you liked Nick/Laura, stay tuned, because I've got a one-shot coming up. (With Dark Lord's permission, of course.)**

**See you in the archives, mutants.**


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